The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

16 NOVEMBER 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL After Afghanistan From your standpoint, at the Department of State, you have to be a little worried about morale of those people who have dedicated the better part of 20 years to this effort. What can we do on behalf of the Foreign Service—not what can we say, but what can we do, on behalf of the Foreign Service—especially at a time when we need to be building back our diplomatic corps? —Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), to Secretary Antony Blinken, at the SFRC hearing, “Examining the U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan, ” Sept. 14. Support for “Havana Syndrome”Victims Far too many “Havana Syndrome” victims have had to battle the bureaucracy to receive care for their debilitating injuries. I have spoken personally with some of the victims of these heinous attacks who were harmed while repre- senting our interests. For those victims, the HAVANA Act will ensure that they receive the financial and medical support that they deserve. It also affirms our commitment to making sure that our government finds out who is responsible. —Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine), co-sponsor with Senator MarkWarner (D-Va.) of the Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, in a Sept. 21 press release . HEARD ON THE HILL JOSH U.S. Donates Millions More Vaccine Doses P resident Biden announced on Sept. 22 that the United States will buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer- BioNTech vaccine that it will donate to countries in need, for delivery by Sep- tember 2022. The U.S. is doubling its purchase of the vaccine to more than 1.1 billion doses to help vaccinate 70 percent of the global population by next year. So far, the U.S. has shipped almost 160 million doses to 100 countries around the world, a figure that exceeds donations from all other countries combined. Nevertheless, to reach the 70 percent goal, about 5 billion more doses need to be donated to low- and middle-income countries. The U.S. move reflects the Biden administration’s effort to encourage prosperous nations to do more for global health security, a call the president issued at the global vaccination summit he convened on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in September. More than 5.9 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses have been administered around the world over the past year, rep- resenting about 43 percent of the global population. But there are vast disparities in distribution, with many lower-income countries struggling to vaccinate the most vulnerable members of their populations. The United States delivers 100,620 COVID-19 vaccine doses to Namibia on Sept. 27. Biden Signs Federal Vaccine Mandate A s part of the administration’s “Path Out of the Pandemic” plan, Presi- dent Biden issued an executive order on Sept. 9 mandating COVID-19 vaccines for all federal employees. These require- ments became effective on Oct. 15 and apply to all executive branch employ- ees, including those who are currently teleworking. A second executive order signed the same day described the process the Biden administration will take to make federal vaccine mandates a contractual requirement for doing business with the government. The Safer Federal Workforce Task Force subsequently issued guidelines with further details for federal employ- ees. The executive order applies to federal contractors and certain subcontractors as well, except in “limited circumstances where an employee is legally entitled to an accommodation,” the administration said. The deadline for compliance is Dec. 8, according to a second round of guid- ance issued by the Safer Federal Work- force Task Force. U.S.DEPARTMENTOFSTATE