Biden to Visit Chicago Area Thursday, Highlight Vaccine Requirements

President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Chicago Thursday, more than a week after he first planned to travel to the city before his visit was postponed. The president is set to arrive at O’Hare International Airport during the afternoon and will at one point travel to Elk Grove Village, resuming his plans to tout vaccine mandates. “The President will travel to the Chicago, Illinois area to highlight the importance of COVID-19 vaccine requirements,” the White House said in a release Monday. In Elk Grove Village, Biden will visit a construction site being built by Clayco, one of the largest construction companies in the Midwest. There, Clayco is expected to announce their support of the president’s plan to require vaccinations or weekly testing as they “implement a system of vaccinations or testing to all of their employees,” the White House said. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker are both expected to meet the president at O’Hare Airport. He is also slated to meet with United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. The Chicago-based airline has one of the strictest vaccine mandate policies of any U.S. airline.  The visit comes as the White House releases a new report stating vaccine requirements are helping to drive up vaccination rates across the country. “The President’s message will be clear: Vaccination requirements work. Vaccination requirements get more people vaccinated, helping to end the pandemic and strengthen the economy,” the White House said in a statement. “That’s why he’s leading on implementing vaccination requirements for 100 million workers – two-thirds of all workers in the U.S. And that’s why we’re seeing growing momentum for vaccination requirements across sectors and across the country.” The president had been slated to visit the city last Wednesday, but the trip was canceled one day before his scheduled visit as negotiations over key legislation were underway. Lightfoot and Pritzker have both praised area businesses requiring vaccinations for customers in both the city and state, though they have stopped short of issuing mandates citywide or statewide. Certain groups are required to get vaccinated in the state, however, including health care workers, teachers and higher education students. “I applaud those venues requiring vaccination proof or a negative test to get admittance,” Lightfoot said in September. “I think we’ll see more of that. This is a conversation happening across every industry sector, and we support it.” New York City, San Francisco and New Orleans are among the cities that have started requiring proof of vaccination for public indoor spaces. This week, Los Angeles city leaders adopted one of the nation’s strictest vaccine mandates, a sweeping measure requiring the shots for everyone entering a bar, restaurant, nail salon, gym or basketball game at Staples Center. Biden last month month unveiled a so-called “action plan” aimed at confronting the COVID-19 surge being driven by the spread of the delta variant, which will require vaccinations for millions of workers across the country. The expansive rules mandate that all employers with more than 100 workers require them to be vaccinated or test for the virus weekly, affecting about 80 million Americans. And the roughly 17 million workers at health facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid also will have to be fully vaccinated. Biden is also requiring vaccination for employees of the executive branch and contractors who do business with the federal government — with no option to test out. That covers several million more workers.

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