The Washington Post is requiring employees to get a COVID-19 vaccine before returning to the company’s office.
The move is aimed at safeguarding the health and safety of employees, the paper’s publisher Fred Ryan told employees in a memo on Tuesday.
“In the many conversations I had had with Post employees across all departments, I have heard the genuine concerns they have for themselves and their families with new COVID variants emerging. Accordingly, our plan is to require all Washington Post employees to demonstrate proof of full COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment beginning with our September 13 office return,” he wrote.
Contractors and visitors will also need to prove they’ve been vaccinated to enter the offices.
Exemptions will be available for people with documented medical conditions and religious concerns, as stipulated by federal law.
Instead, they are being administrated under emergency use authorization.
Full approval is not expected until close to the end of the year, or next year.
Over 188 million Americans have received at least one vaccine dose as of July 27.
Some legal experts believe such mandates are illegal, especially in light of the lack of full approval.
“We don’t believe that any state or government can enforce these COVID shots, especially because they are still under the emergency use authorization,” Mathew Staver, chairman of Liberty Counsel, told The Epoch Times in a previous interview.
But federal judges have so far not ruled against mandates, including a judge in Texas who dismissed a case brought by employees of Houston Methodist, a healthcare system. The workers filed an appeal, which has not yet been ruled on.
