The Biden administration set a January 4th deadline on Thursday for employees at large companies to get fully vaccinated against COVID-19 or face weekly tests and mandatory mask wearing on the job, a move that impacts 84 million private sector workers.

New government rules require Americans who work at companies with 100 or more employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 4 or take weekly tests. Companies that don't comply could face penalties of nearly $14,000 per violation. https://t.co/kW9sMweVay

— The Associated Press (@AP) November 4, 2021

Seventeen million employees at health care facilities that receive federal funding from Medicare or Medicaid will not have the testing option.

Failure to abide by the new rules – which were previewed in September – will result in fines that start at “$13,653 each and go as high as $136,532 per violation if employers are found to be willfully non-compliant or repeat offenses,” according to Axios.

NPR adds:

Earlier, President Biden had ordered federal workers and contractors to be vaccinated, with no testing option. Federal workers have until November 22 to get the shots, while federal contractors now have until January 4.

“A virus that has killed more than 745,000 Americans, with more than 70,000 new cases per day currently, is clearly a health hazard that poses a grave danger to workers,” a senior administration official told reporters.

Today we hit 750,000 Americans lost to COVID19. We’re on trajectory to hit 800,0000 by year’s end. Those last 100,000+ maybe even 200,000 died unnecessarily because vaccines were widely available. They chose not to get vaccinated, sometimes even defiant. They died by antiscience

— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@PeterHotez) November 4, 2021

According to a new rule from the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration that impacts companies with 100 or more employees and all healthcare facilities that receive federal funds, employers must provide paid time off to workers so they can get jabbed and recover from any side effects.

The Washington Post reports on the Republican pushback:

Republican attorneys general in at least 24 states have vowed to fight the rule in court, and one, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R), has already filed a lawsuit against the federal government over it. Some state governments, including Missouri’s, are pledging to explore legislation that could exempt their state from the requirement.

But officials from OSHA and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told reporters that the new rules “preempt” any state or local laws that seek to ban or limit employer authority for vaccination, masks and testing, like one that Republicans in Texas passed recently. They said they plan to take action if states that have their own state occupational health plans, which are required to be at least as stringent as the federal rules, do not comply with the federal plan.

The New York Times adds:

The January deadline allows retailers and logistics companies, both of which are strapped for employees, to get through the holiday shopping season before instituting the requirements.

Companies that have already mandated vaccines, including 3M, Procter & Gamble, IBM and the airlines American, Alaska and JetBlue, have not seen a large number of employees quit over the pressure to get inoculated, though a small minority of workers have given up their jobs.