Biden expected to announce vaccine mandate for US federal employees – live | US news

In case you missed it last night: the bipartisan infrastructure bill cleared its first procedural vote in the Senate, just hours after negotiators announced they had reached a deal.

The Senate voted 67-32 to take up the legislation, with 17 Republicans joining all Democrats to advance the bill.

If enacted, the bill would invest $550bn of new federal funding in roads, bridges and other physical infrastructure projects.

Biden has already endorsed the legislation, describing it as “the most significant long-term investment in our infrastructure and competitiveness in nearly a century”.

“This deal signals to the world that our democracy can function, deliver, and do big things,” Biden said in a statement yesterday.

“As we did with the transcontinental railroad and the interstate highway, we will once again transform America and propel us into the future.”

Of course, yesterday’s vote was only the first in a long series of votes before the bill can pass the Senate, and challenges remain in the House, where progressives have threatened to oppose the legislation unless they receive assurances about the separate reconciliation bill.

Read more about the vote and the negotiations here:

The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports on Republicans’ efforts to convince unvaccinated Americans to get their shot:

Almost like a switch had been flipped, a set of high-profile Republican political figures and conservative media personalities recently shifted their stance on the Covid-19 shots and became more outspoken and proactive in urging Americans to get vaccinated.

Governor Kay Ivey of Alabama, the state with the lowest proportion of fully vaccinated people in the country, said last week it was time to shame vaccination holdouts. Commentator Sean Hannity, who had previously called the pandemic a hoax, offered an on-air argument for viewers to get vaccinated. In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis, who had been selling merchandise mocking the use of masks, said the anti-Covid vaccines “are saving lives”.

All together it’s a shift among some of the most prominent voices within the Republican party and among conservatives toward encouraging vaccine use rather than leaving it up to personal choice.

Polls have shown that conservative Americans are much more likely to be unvaccinated and hesitant to get the shot. Some observers have welcomed the recent shift by high-profile Republicans, but others warn it may be too little, too late.

But in interviews with half a dozen Republican pollsters, including ones who have held focus groups on encouraging holdouts to get vaccinated, they say that there is still a block of Americans who won’t be moved even if it’s a Republican urging them to get the shot.

Read the full report here:

Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers is expected to mirror the requirement being instituted in New York by mayor Bill de Blasio.

Here’s how the New York mandate works: starting September 13, all 340,000 of the city’s employees — including public school teachers, police officers and firefighters — must show proof of vaccination or receive weekly coronavirus tests.

Announcing the mandate on Monday, de Blasio said the vaccine requirement would allow New York to fully reopen in a safe manner, as the Delta variant spreads across the country.

“Let’s be clear about why this is so important: this is about our recovery. This is about what we need to do to bring back New York City,” de Blasio said.

“This is about keeping people safe. This is about making sure that our families get through Covid safe. This is about bringing back jobs. You name it.”

Greetings from Washington, live blog readers.

Joe Biden will deliver an update today on his administration’s coronavirus vaccination campaign, and he is expected to announce a vaccine mandate for federal employees.

The president previewed the plan on Tuesday, telling reporters: “That’s under consideration right now.”

One senior administration official told CNN that the mandate will be similar to the order being implemented in New York by Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Biden’s speech comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended vaccinated people in regions with low vaccination rates resume wearing masks indoors, due to the spread of the Delta variant.

In a Tuesday statement, Biden described the CDC guidance as “another step on our journey to defeating this virus”.

“On Thursday, I will lay out the next steps in our effort to get more Americans vaccinated. Vaccinations are free, safe, and effective to every American,” Biden said in the statement. “By following the science, and by doing our part by getting vaccinated, America can beat Covid.”

The blog will have more details on the speech coming up, so stay tuned.