Has Vice President Kamala Harris announced a widespread COVID-19 vaccination policy? No, that's not true: Her campaign website shows that she requires employees of her 2024 presidential campaign to be vaccinated. There is no evidence that Harris has released a plan to require COVID vaccination for all Americans.
The claim was implied in a post (archived here) on Instagram on August 20, 2024. The post had a caption that read:
ARTICLE LINK IN THEIR BIO 👇 @conservativeforever_v3
Harris Unveils COVID Vax Mandate, Raising Eyebrows
Also follow us @conservativeforever_v3 🇺🇸
This is what the post looked like on Instagram at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Wed Aug 21 16:05:42 2024 UTC)
Vaccine requirement only applies to her staff
The article (archived here) mentioned in the post making the claim states that the "mandate" only applies to Harris' presidential campaign staff. Lead Stories checked Harris' campaign website in its "Work With Us" section (archived here), and found the statement posted in the job postings (examples here, here and here). The relevant statement read:
Harris for President requires all employees to be 'up to date' on COVID-19 vaccination status as prescribed by the CDC as a condition of employment, unless otherwise prohibited by applicable law. If you seek a reasonable accommodation in relation to the campaign's COVID-19 policy, you should speak to the HR Department prior to reporting to an office location.
According to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance (archived here), employers can enforce a COVID vaccination policy for employees unless an employee has a federally protected exception. The EEOC resource section that addresses this concern was last updated in 2022 and states:
The federal EEO laws do not prevent an employer from requiring all employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19, subject to the reasonable accommodation provisions of Title VII and the ADA and other EEO considerations discussed below. (See also Section L, Vaccinations - Title VII Religious Objections to COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements). If there is such an employer requirement, the EEO laws do not prevent employers from requiring documentation or other confirmation that employees are up to date on their vaccinations (see K.9.), but the EEO laws may require employers to make exceptions to a vaccination requirement for some employees.
Lead Stories did a search using keywords on Harris' campaign website (through Google), visible here, which found no results to corroborate the claim.
Lead Stories reached out to Harris' campaign for comment on the claim and will update this story with any relevant response.
Other fact checks
Lead Stories has also debunked more claims related to Harris and the 2024 election.
