US President Joe Biden will make corona vaccinations mandatory for federal government employees, US media report.

Biden will give a speech on Thursday evening in which he will explain his plans for a tougher approach to the Delta variant. Biden will sign a decree to ratify the decision.

With the new policy, federal government officials will soon not be able to opt for regular corona tests instead of vaccination. The obligation applies to approximately 4 million people. The decree does not cover employees of the United States Congress and of the federal justice system.

Biden will introduce the same vaccination rules for private companies that do contracts for the federal government with another decree.

American media report that Biden will also clarify introducing an extra corona shot for vaccinated people, the so-called booster shots. The US currently has a total of 650,000 deaths from Covid-19, and last week the country passed the 40 million confirmed infections. Hospital admissions are currently increasing.

US defence personnel are already required to be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Some local US governments have also already introduced mandatory vaccinations for teachers. This is the case in the cities of New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, among others, as well as Washington State. Several companies also make it mandatory for employees to be vaccinated against the virus.