Apple will reportedly ask all of its employees, both retail and corporate, to provide proof of the COVID-19 booster vaccination.
According to a report from The Verge, in an internal Apple email starting January 24, 2021, employees who have not been vaccinated or have not submitted evidence of a COVID-19 booster vaccination will have to take a COVID-19 swab test if their negative result can be re-entered the office.
It was not explained in more detail whether the COVID swab test regulation only applies to corporate or retail employees. Apple has not yet provided a response regarding this.
"Due to the declining performance of the main series of COVID-19 vaccines and the emergence of new highly contagious variations such as Omicron, booster vaccines are now part of keeping up with COVID-19 vaccination developments to protect yourself against severe illness," Apple's internal email statement said.
Many companies in the US have strengthened COVID-19 regulations, where they required employees to get booster vaccinations and postponed plans to return to the office due to the increasing variants of Omicron in many countries.
As Meta parent Facebook asked its employees for a COVID-19 booster vaccine before returning to the office, because of this Meta also postponed the reopening of the office until March 28, where the previous plan was to reopen on January 31, 2021.
Then Alphabet's Google temporarily asked employees to take weekly COVID-19 tests for people entering its US offices.
Amazon is offering warehouse workers in the US $40 cash for a COVID-19 booster vaccination.