Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sites are fully reopened.
The announcement comes as the more contagious Delta variant of coronavirus is driving a dramatic spike in Covid-19 cases and hospital admissions.
Google's announcement was shortly followed by Facebook, which also said it will make vaccines mandatory for US employees who work in offices. Exceptions will be made for medical and other reasons.
In an email sent to Google's more than 130,000 employees worldwide, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning on 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," Mr Pichai said.
And Mr 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 headquarters in Mountain View, California, and other US offices, before being extended to the more than 40 other countries where Google operates.
"This is the stuff that needs to be done, because otherwise we are endangering workers and their families," said Dr Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University and a former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore.
"It is not fair to parents to be expected to come back to work and sit shoulder-to-shoulder with unvaccinated people who could be carrying a potentially deadly virus."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here