President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate is ordinary yet controversial

AFTER MONTHS of begging Americans to get themselves vaccinated, President Joe Biden has stopped asking nicely. On September 9th the Biden administration announced a requirement to be vaccinated or tested regularly that will affect everyone who works for a private company with more than 100 employees plus the federal workforce, broadly defined. That is about 100m Americans in all, 25m of whom are not vaccinated. Will it work?

There are clear reasons for taking this unusual step. Only 54% of Americans are fully vaccinated, meaning the nation is lagging behind its peers. In Canada and Britain, 69% and 65% of people are fully vaccinated respectively, according to Oxford University. Japan initially experienced a disastrous rollout. One month before the start of the Olympics in July, only 18% of Japan’s population received the jab. But Japan has now surpassed America in first doses administered (65% compared with 63%). With 663,325 deaths from covid-19, America will shortly exceed the number of fatalities resulting from the 1918 influenza pandemic (675,000).

According to Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, the new federal requirements could result in 12m more Americans becoming vaccinated by mid-2022, increasing the proportion of adults who have had at least one dose to 90%. Critics of the requirements warn of a potential...