Nearly 50% US companies to impose COVID vaccine mandate by 2021 end: Survey

More than half of the companies in the United States have a plan to mandate COVID-19 vaccine for employees by the end of this year, according to media reports citing a national survey that included nearly 1,000 employers.

The findings of the survey also concluded that nearly 25% of these United States companies will also have COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition for employment, according to reports from Reuters.

Currently, around 21% of the companies in the United States have some kind of a vaccine requirement for employees. However, according to the projections of the survey, about 52% of the employers are likely to have COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

The survey included inputs from 961 United States companies, which in total employ nearly 9.7 million people, according to reports from Reuters.

The national survey, which was conducted by Willis Towers Watson, explains that the vaccination requirements of these companies can be distributed on a wide spectrum. While some can require full vaccination for all employees, others can be lenient and mandate inoculation for those visiting common areas of the office.

Citing the full approval granted to Pfizer’s COVID vaccine by the United States Food and Drug Administration, Willis Towers Watson’s population health leader, Jeff Levin-Scherz said, “We expect even more employers to institute vaccine mandates in the wake of FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine”, according to reports from Reuters.

According to data released by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 52% of the country’s population is fully vaccinated against the coronavirus while 62% have been administered with at least one dose of the vaccine.

Prominent companies in the United States have already imposed vaccine mandates for employees to some extent. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, Goldman Sachs Group and Walmart Inc. have joined the flurry of companies that have imposed vaccine mandates.