On September 9, President Biden announced his six-pronged, comprehensive national strategy to stop the COVID-19 pandemic. This included a significant escalation of his efforts to get the eligible population vaccinated against the virus.
One piece of this plan includes a new emergency temporary standard from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that will require employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforces are fully vaccinated and require any unvaccinated workers to produce a negative COVID-19 test result on at least a weekly basis. The ETS will include a requirement that employers with 100 or more employees provide paid time off for employees to both receive the vaccine and recover from any symptoms that arise.
OSHA is currently developing the ETS and will issue it in the “coming weeks.” CWS will file comments on the ETS once it is published, but the ETS will go into effect immediately upon issuance.