A race for cover. Not only in the fight against the Delta variant, which in the United States has claimed over 7,000 lives in the last five days, but also in the response of an increasingly struggling president. Joe Biden has paid dearly for handling the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and his popularity – according to polls – is plummeting among voters, just seven months after his inauguration in the White House. And now move on to the counterattack. “In recent weeks we have been patient. Now stop”. The object of the president’s arrows are the No Vax stars and stripes, that “minority of 80 million citizens who are creating problems”, in the words of the 78-year-old resident of the White House, who addressed the nation on Thursday afternoon. Said, done: the US administration announced it had signed two executive orders to make the vaccine mandatory for both federal employees and so-called contractor, those who do business with the government, employees of companies to which contracts are entrusted. For them the alternative of the tampon is no longer there: they will have 75 days to comply, after which a disciplinary procedure will be triggered against them. But that’s not all: the Department of Labor will ask individuals with over 100 employees to make the vaccine or tampon mandatory for their employees.
Those who do not comply will pay dearly, since there will be fines of up to 14 thousand dollars. These measures are part of a larger six-point program to counter the evolution of the Delta variant: the others consist in ensuring easy access to the third dose; in testing students and school staff; make home tests available; rationalize funding to support businesses and support hospitals in emergency due to the high number of hospitalized patients. Biden, who also had his first telephone conversation in over seven months with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Thursday, expressed all his frustration: “A minority of Americans, backed by a minority of government officials, is taking on the corner, he is creating problems for us ».
Tune in as I deliver remarks on my plan to stop the spread COVID-19 and boost vaccinations. https://t.co/UWmY4WxbRd
President Biden (@POTUS) September 9, 2021
The mandatory nature of the vaccine still remains a taboo in a country that has one of its cornerstones in individual freedom, but the White House is trying to make a scorched earth around the No Vax. The new measures together will affect at least 100 million workers, over two-thirds of the American workforce. Now it will be necessary to understand if all this will be enough to curb a pandemic that travels with a daily average of about 150,000 cases and almost 1,400 deaths in a country where the fully immunized population is still at 53 percent and where the vaccination cycle has at least begun. from 62.2 per cent: well below the target declared by the president of 70 per cent of adults with at least one dose by last July 4.