The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs announced on Monday that it will mandate COVID-19 vaccines for healthcare personnel. The VA secretary said in an announcement the mandate applies to Title 38 VA healthcare personnel, such as physicians, nurses, dentists and chiropractors, “who work in Veterans Health Administration facilities, visit VHA facilities or provide direct care to those VA serves.” The mandate gives each of them up to eight weeks to become fully vaccinated. It’s the first such mandate at a federal agency in the United States.

The announcement comes on the same day over 50 major healthcare groups advocated for employers mandating COVID-19 vaccines for healthcare workers. Both moves come after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky comes recently warned that COVID-19 was becoming “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” The CDC chief explained that there was a rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths due to the Delta variant, especially among the unvaccinated population.

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