Companies across the U.S. will require their employees to get COVID vaccinations before returning to in-person work, with Facebook and Google joining Wells Fargo and Saks Fifth Avenue in announcing the rules as the Indian 'Delta' variant threatens to derail the economy's reopening.
Already, Twitter late Wednesday announced it would close its offices in New York and San Francisco after just re-opening them two weeks ago. Lyft, meanwhile, said it would push its office re-opening all the way out to February.
And compulsory masking could make a re-appearance, too, with California saying it would push for people to be masked indoors regardless of their vaccination status.
The measures bring much of the country's march back to normal in the wake of more than a year of restrictions to a slowdown as the particularly virulent Delta variant is thought by experts to be a major threat - especially to the unvaccinated.
Over the past month, the average new daily cases across the country have increased by 376 percent, from 11,887 on June 26 to 63,248 on Tuesday, for instance.
Deaths however, have remained flat with 406 recorded on Tuesday amid a seven-day rolling average of 290.
Still, companies appear to be acting as though things could get bad again. And local governments, especially in blue states, are rushing back with requirements: In New York state, all 250,000 government workers will have to get the COVID vaccine, or face mandatory weekly testing, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday. Frontline workers at hospitals will have no opt-out measure.
Cuomo said he encouraged private businesses to require the vaccine, too -- not just for employees, but also for customers.
He asked for employers to call their workers back by Labor Day, Sept. 6, and said that call paired with a vaccine requirement would help get the economy back to normal.
Private businesses across the country appear to be making the same calculations, with many saying they'll require vaccinations for workers to return to the office.
'How we implement this policy will depend on local conditions and regulations. We will have a process for those who cannot be vaccinated for medical or other reasons and will be evaluating our approach in other regions as the situation evolves,' Lori Goler, Facebook's vice president of people, wrote in a statement on Wednesday afternoon.
Around half of the social media platform's 58,000 employees are expected to be working remotely when the offices open in October.
Google on Wednesday also said it was mandating its employees get vaccinated against COVID-19 when they return to campuses beginning in mid-October.
The date was delayed by a month due to the surge in cases nationwide fueled by the Indian Delta variant, the company announced.
Facebook will require employees to be vaccinated before returning to the office
Facebook revealed on Wednesday afternoon that US workers returning to the office will need to have been vaccinated
In a Wednesday email sent to Google's more than 130,000 employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning October 18 instead of its previous target date of September 1.
The decision also affects tens of thousands of contractors who Google intends to continue to pay while access to its campuses remains limited.
'This extension will allow us time to ramp back into work while providing flexibility for those who need it,' Pichai wrote.
And Pichai disclosed that once offices are fully reopened, everyone working there will have to be vaccinated.
The requirement will be first imposed at Google's Mountain View, California headquarters and other US offices before being extended to the more than 40 other countries where Google operates.
The vaccine mandate will be adjusted to adhere to the laws and regulators of each location, Pichai wrote, and exceptions will be made for medical and other 'protected' reasons.
'Getting vaccinated is one of the most important ways to keep ourselves and our communities healthy in the months ahead,' Pichai explained.
Google's decision to require vaccines to be in the office comes on the heels of similar moves affecting hundreds of thousands government workers in California and New York as part of stepped-up measures to fight the Indian Delta variant.
Google on Wednesday informed its more than 130,000 employees that they would all be required to get vaccinated against COVID-19 when they return to the office in mid-October. The image above shows Google's Mountain View, California headquarters
Meanwhile, Twitter on Wednesday announced that it was closing its New York City and San Francisco offices and pausing all other office reopenings, in response to the latest CDC warnings about COVID-19.
The Silicon Valley firm had already, in May 2020, become the first major tech company to allow staffers to work from home permanently, even after coronavirus lockdowns end.
On Wednesday it said it was closing its two largest offices.
'After careful consideration of the CDC's updated guidelines, and in light of current conditions, Twitter has made the decision to close our opened offices in New York and San Francisco as well as pause future office reopenings, effective immediately,' the company said.
'We continue to monitor local conditions and make necessary changes that prioritize the health and safety of our Tweeps.'
The San Francisco headquarters of Twitter, where around a fifth of the company's 5,000 employees worked
Other major tech companies including Apple and Amazon have so far not mandated vaccines in order to return to work.
Microsoft said it will not require workers to be vaccinated in order to come in to work, although company officials are recommending employees receive the shot.
The rapid rise in cases during the past month has prompted more public health officials to urge stricter measures to help overcome vaccine skepticism and misinformation.
The vaccine requirement rolling out in California next month covers more than 240,000 government employees.
The city and county of San Francisco is also requiring its roughly 35,000 workers to be vaccinated or risk disciplinary action after the Food and Drug Administration approves one of the vaccines now being distributed under an emergency order.
It's unclear how many of Google's workers still haven't been vaccinated, although Pichai described the rate as high in his email.
The vaccine requirement will be first imposed at Google's Mountain View, California headquarters and other US offices before being extended to the more than 40 other countries where Google operates
Google's decision to extend its remote-work follows a similar move by another technology powerhouse, Apple, which recently moved its return-to-office plans from September to October, too.
The delays by Apple and Google could influence other major employers to take similar precautions, given that the technology industry has been at the forefront of the shift to remote work that has been triggered by the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Even before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic in March 2020, Google, Apple and many other prominent tech firms had been telling their employees to work from home.
This marks the third time that Google has pushed back the date for fully reopening its offices.
Google's vaccine requirement also could embolden other employers to issue similar mandates to guard against outbreaks of the Delta variant and minimize the need to wear masks in the office.
While most companies are planning to bring back their workers at least a few days a week, others in the tech industry have decided to let employees do their jobs from remote locations permanently.
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