By Trevor Hunnicutt
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden on Wednesday will meet with the chief executives of United Airlines and Kaiser Permanente during a meeting aimed at finding ways to boost U.S. COVID-19 vaccination rates, a White House official said.
Biden is scheduled to meet with leaders of large and small businesses, colleges and universities, and healthcare providers “to discuss strategies to get more Americans vaccinated and end the COVID-19 pandemic,” the White House said earlier.
The president’s meeting comes as the administration looks for new ways to ramp up vaccination rates amid a spike in COVID-19 cases due to the highly infectious Delta variant.
United previously announced https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/united-airlines-makes-covid-19-shots-compulsory-us-employees-2021-08-06 a requirement that all its U.S.-based employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
Biden has endorsed companies and local governments pressing more people to get vaccinated. The Biden administration is also looking into what authority businesses have to mandate vaccines, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Reuters last week.
“I will have their backs and the backs of other private and public sector leaders if they take such steps,” he said last week.
In addition to United Airlines’ Scott Kirby, the meeting includes Kaiser Permanente chief executive Gregory Adams, Howard University president Wayne Frederick and a South Carolina small business owner who adopted a vaccinate-or-get-tested requirement for her workers, the administration official said.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Susan Heavey; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Chizu Nomiyama)
