RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) – As COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths keep climbing, President Joe Biden is going to require the vaccine for all federal workers.
In July, the Department of Veterans Affairs was the first federal entity to announce they’d be requiring vaccines for all VA health care personnel, from dentists to nurses.
After the FDA fully approved the Pfizer vaccine last month, the Pentagon mandated the vaccine for military service members, which affects more than 100,000 people in North Carolina.
Around that same time, Biden said federal workers needed to show proof of vaccination or do regular testing to help fight COVID-19.
Now, he’s no longer going to make regular testing in place of the shot an option.
As of June 2018, North Carolina had nearly 70,000 federal employees – making up about 2 percent of all jobs in the state.
Data from the beginning of the year shows there are almost 13,000 federal workers in the Triangle.
This doesn’t include active-duty military.
These jobs range from postal workers to TSA employees to social security administrators.
The United States Postal Service is the second-largest employer in the country.
A spokesperson for USPS declined an interview, instead releasing a statement saying, “We will review the executive order once it is released.”
The American Federation of Government Employees, which has about 10,000 dues-paying members in the state, released a statement that said in part, “We expect to bargain over this change prior to implementation, and we urge everyone who is able to get vaccinated as soon as they can do so.”
