President Biden leaned into the new FDA licensure, or full approval, of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, encouraging businesses to require vaccinations among employees.
“Today I’m calling on more companies…in the private sector to step up the vaccine requirements that will reach millions more people,” Biden said. “If you’re a business leader, a non-profit leader, a state or local leader, who has been waiting for full FDA approval to require vaccinations, I call on you now to do that… do what I did last month, requiring employees to get vaccinated or face strict requirements.”
Biden touted full FDA approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, calling it a “key milestone in our nation’s fight against COVID,” and urged unvaccinated individuals to receive their shots amid rapid spread of the highly transmissible delta variant driving infections nationwide.
The president noted an accelerated vaccination pace, with one million shots administered each day across three consecutive days last week, figures not seen since June, and a 56% uptick in the vaccination rate over the last month. The U.S. also logged 6 million vaccinations in the last seven days, the highest seven-day total in over a month and a half.
