In September 2021, Biden announced the Biden administration COVID-19 action plan, a six-point plan of new measures to help control the pandemic, which included new executive orders and regulatory actions to mandate vaccination for COVID-19.
Executive orders were announced directing all federal agencies to mandate the vaccination of their employees (with exceptions as required by law,
The administration set a November 22, 2021 deadline for most federal employees to be fully vaccinated and a January 4, 2022 deadline for federal contractors to be vaccinated.
In September 2021, the employees of all federally-funded Medicaid and Medicare-certified health care facilities, and Head Start program facilities, were required to be vaccinated, as ordered through the United States Department of Health and Human Services
Companies with more than 100 employees could either require vaccination for all (and give their workers four hours' paid time off for their vaccination appointments)
These two policies together —federally-funded healthcare facilities and large companies— would apply to 100 million workers and were scheduled to take effect on January 4, 2022.