Last week, in response to the continued rise of COVID cases and spread of the Delta variant, President Biden unveiled a six-point plan designed to help slow the spread of COVID in the United States. Among the more controversial measures that he took were

• Author: Monica Jackson
• Posted: 2024-05-24

The reaction, predictably, has been mixed, but many concerns have pivoted around these key questions: is it good for business?

Some businesses grateful

On one hand, some businesses are grateful. This is for many reasons.
First, if the mandate is in place, customers are more likely to shop with confidence. Surveys show that most people are more willing to shop and enter a store - and thus spend money in a store - if employees at a location are actually vaccinated. Many businesses would prefer that their employees vaccinate, but have been concerned over losing employees, getting caught up in a legal fight, or being the bad guy. By interjecting the power of the federal government, President Biden is absorbing all of these concerns.
For the same reason, some small business owners have said that they wish the mandate impacted them as well, as such a decision would make their lives easier - particularly in terms of enforcing vaccine requirements.
For businesses who are this large and have already issued such a mandate, this levels the playing field and reduces competition among employers who may not have wanted to get vaccinated and looked elsewhere for new jobs, as if this mandate exists in more places, it will make it harder for these employees to find other places to work.

Many questions abound

There are, predictably, many questions about this new mandate.
Chief among them is their legality. While the legality of mandated vaccines has been upheld repeatedly - including by the decision of Supreme Court Justice Amy Comey Barrett to not hear an Indiana vaccine case - there are more technical but important questions. One of the key ones is whether or not President Biden can issue such a mandate without legislative approval. The issue will unquestionably wind up in the courts, and 24 states - all red ones - are putting together plans to sue the President and federal government for this mandate.
Other questions spin around the specifics of the order. How will businesses report that they are carrying out the required testing on employees who decline to be vaccinated? When will such an order take effect? Who will they make these reports to? Furthermore, what ancillary effects will this order have? Can it impact things like health insurance? Furthermore, what about employees who cannot be vaccinated for medical or religious reasons? How will they be impacted?

Enforcement is key

Of all of the questions that remain, perhaps the most key is this: How will this law be reinforced? After all, a law is only any good if people adhere to it, and it is currently unknown how the federal government will carry out this mandate. The bureau responsible for this enforcement - OSHA, or Occupational Safety & Health Administration - is notoriously understaffed. This office is responsible not only for enforcing the rule and potentially sending out fines for violations, but for actually drafting the specific regulatory language that will be translated into enforcement.
One of the great problems with many orders issued during the pandemic is that they were designed to be upheld by an "honor system" with no real penalties for violations. This begs the question: How will this be enforced?
There are many, many questions about the impact and enforcement of the mandate. There are also questions about the wisdom of the mandate and whether or not it will ultimately backfire, further politicizing the issue and driving more and more people away from getting vaccinated. Right now, it is too early to have concrete answers to any of these issues, and we can only hope that they will be addressed in the near future.