New York City, the Department of Veteran Affairs and the state of California announced plans Monday to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for many of their employees, a shift in how the country is seemingly dealing with vaccine hesitancy after months of campaigning to the public then offering money and prizes when vaccination levels dipped.

In New York and California, the mandate comes with the option of wearing a mask and receiving testing at least once a week if a worker does not want to be vaccinated. The VA did not offer another option for its medical employees.

The announcements, including in the most populated city and state in the country, came as the more infectious delta variant continues its spread across the country, leading to spikes, outbreaks and the reinstallment of some COVID restrictions in certain areas.

New York City will require teachers, police officers and the rest of the 340,000 city employees to get coronavirus vaccines by mid-September or face weekly testing, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

California became the first state in the country to unveil a vaccine verification program Monday for all state and health care employees, requiring evidence of vaccination from employees by Aug. 2 or mandatory testing.

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs announced an even stricter order, saying vaccines would be mandatory for its health care workers because of concerns about the delta variant. The annoucement marked the first federal agency to enlist such a mandate and came as coronavirus infections have more than doubled