From Walt Disney World and Chevron to CVS and a Michigan university, a flurry of private and public employers are requiring workers to get vaccinated against covid-19 after the federal government gave full approval to the Pfizer shot. And the number is certain to grow much higher.

Some workers and unions objected to getting the vaccine — and some employers were reluctant to require it — because it had yet to receive FDA full approval. That happened on Monday.

Shortly after the FDA acted, Walt Disney World reached a deal with its unions to require all workers at its theme park in Orlando, Fla., to be vaccinated by Oct. 22. The move came several weeks after Disney announced a vaccine mandate for all salaried and nonunion hourly employees in the United States (An email to Disney was not immediately returned.)

On Monday, health experts expressed hope that the FDA’s action would boost the U.S. vaccination rate, which bottomed out at about a half-million shots a day in July — down from a peak of 3.4 million a day on average in April.

The number of shots dispensed has since climbed to about 850,000 a day amid growing alarm over the highly contagious delta variant, which has sent deaths, cases and hospitalizations soaring, wiping out months of progress.

There is a risk for employers at a time when many are struggling to fill openings and workers are confident of finding better jobs: Faced with a vaccine requirement, an employee might “say, ‘OK, fine. I’m leaving,'” Mishra said. “It’s not a given you’re going to be able to fill that job with someone who is vaccinated.”

See the full article from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette here.