Amna Nawaz:
Judy, that rule comes from the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, and applies to private businesses with 100 or more employees. It mandates that workers who don’t get fully vaccinated get tested weekly.
And by that same January 4 deadline, 17 million health care workers in facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding must get vaccinated.
Mayor Walsh is the secretary of labor, and he joins me now.
Secretary Walsh, welcome back to the “NewsHour.” Thank you for making the time.
So, you’re not requiring vaccines for those 84 million private sector employees. They can choose to get tested weekly. If we know shots work, we know that they slow the spread of the virus, they save lives, why not just require them?
Marty Walsh, U.S. Secretary of Labor: Because what we want to do here is get as many people vaccinated as possible. And we have the option for testing there as well, and testing and also masks.
So we looked at — we didn’t we didn’t do a mandate. It wasn’t a mandate. The emergency temporary standard, at least it recognizes people in different situations. And, hopefully, we will be able to address all the different situations people might have.
