New rules from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) state that you can be fined up to $10,000 and face six months in jail if you lie about your vaccination status.
According to OSHA’s guidance released on Thursday, companies with 100 or more employees must force them to get the vaccine or be subject to weekly testing.
The guidance also explains that anyone who “knowingly makes any false statement, representation, or certification” may be subject to the strict penalties. Businesses who fail to comply could face fines of up to $14,000 per violation.
The Daily Caller reports, “under the new rules, workers must be vaccinated by Jan. 4 before being forced to provide weekly negative testing. Companies will not be responsible for paying for COVID-19 tests for unvaccinated workers unless a local law or union contract requires it. The mandate is expected to affect 84 million employees nationwide.”
“Democrats’ Build Back Better legislation would increase OSHA penalties tenfold from their initial levels – up to $70,000 for ‘serious violations’ and $700,000 for willful or repeated violations. Forbes previously reported the proposed OSHA changes included in a previous version of the bill in September,” according to a report from Fox Business,
The report added that a cybersecurity research firm called Checkpoint Research has found a tenfold increase in the number of people selling fake vaccine cards on Telegram from August when there were only 1,000 sellers to September, when that number boomed to 10,000. The firm called counterfeit vaccine card sales a “full-blown industry.”
According to numbers from the Biden administration, approximately 30 percent of the nation remains unvaccinated.
“While I would have much preferred that requirements not become necessary, too many people remain unvaccinated for us to get out of this pandemic for good,” Biden said in a statement on Thursday. “So I instituted requirements – and they are working. They protect our workers and have helped us reduce the number of unvaccinated Americans over the age of 12 from approximately 100 million in late July when I began requirements to just about 60 million today.”
