Almost all federal workers in the United States will comply with the vaccination mandate for the government, the deadline of which is Monday, according to media reports citing senior officials of President Joe Biden’s administration. The final number came out to be around 95%.

The official added that the already high number is expected to increase even more in the coming days as multiple federal employees are expected to turn to documents as departments process the data. 

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About 90%, or 3.5 million employees of the United States federal government, have been administered with at least one dose of the three COVID-19 vaccines available in the country, the official said, according to reports from NBC News.

Jen Psaki, press secretary of the White House, said that if employees are restricted from working due to the mandate, it will not disrupt any services of the federal government. 

She said in a statement last week, “We do not anticipate facing any governmental operational disruptions due to this requirement and in fact, the requirement will avoid disruptions, in our view, in our labor force because vaccinations help avoid COVID”, according to reports from NBC News.

The unnamed administration official said the government will arrange an “education and counseling process, followed by additional enforcement steps over time if needed” for the employees who failed to meet COVID vaccine requirements, barring those who have requested a medical or religious exemption.

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The deadline is a major test of Biden’s push to compel people across the country to get vaccinated, as his administration has emphasized that vaccination is the nation’s surest way out from the pandemic, Associated Press reported.

Beyond the federal worker rule, his administration is looking to compel large businesses to institute vaccinate-or-testing requirements that would cover more than 84 million workers, though plans for January enforcement have been on hold pending litigation.

(With AP inputs)