Biden to meet with business leaders amid surge in COVID - 19 infections

WASHINGTON - Sept. 15 - Reuters - U.S. President Joe Biden was scheduled to meet with business leaders and CEOs Wednesday as he pushes companies to require workers to be inoculated amid a surge of COVID - 19 infections among those not yet inoculated.

Biden last week announced vaccine mandates for all federal employees and more large companies as the number of infections in the United States continued to rise, hospital beds filled up and face mask requirements returned, all while some Republican-led states defy recommendations from health officials.

Polls show that a majority of Americans support some form of mandates.

President Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he has seen small number of pledges, though he conceded that there would always be a positive percentage of people who would refuse to get shot.

The White House hopes Wednesday's meeting will serve as a rallying cry for businesses to step up and institute similar measures across the country, an official said.

The meeting involves business leaders and chief executives who have instituted vaccination requirements or are working to implement the new rules, the White House official said.

The policies announced last week require most federal workers to get COVID - 19 vaccinations and push larger employers to have workers inoculated or tested weekly. The new measures would apply to about two-thirds of all U.S. employees, those who work for businesses with more than 100 workers.

The participants at the meeting include the chief executives of Walt Disney Co, Microsoft Corp and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc, Kaiser Permanente, the children's hospital in Philadelphia and Molly Moon’s Homemade Ice Cream.

Josh Bolten, the president of the Business Roundtable representing employers of 20 million workers, will also attend, the White House said. The Business Roundtable welcomed Biden's announcement on mandates.

The fast-growing Delta variant has sparked a new wave of sickness and death, posing increased risk not just to the country but to a president who ran on promises to control the pandemic.

Some small employers have voiced their frustration with the mandate. Large employers like U.S. automakers General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co and rare-earths producer MP Materials Corp said they encourage employees to get vaccinated, but they were quiet about Biden's executive order.