President Joe Biden championed COVID-19 vaccination requirements Thursday as he remains determined to get the roughly 67 million unvaccinated American adults immunized, even as he acknowledged that mandates weren't his “first instinct.”

In the coming weeks, more than 100 million Americans will be subject to vaccine requirements ordered by Biden, and he took his message to a construction site in Elk Grove Village, Illinois run by Clayco, a large building firm that announced a new vaccinate-or-test requirement for its workforce in conjunction with Biden's visit.

The president had ruled out such requirements before taking office in January, but they now are a tactic he feels forced into using by a section of the public that has refused to be inoculated.

Nearly 100 million adult Americans were unvaccinated in July. That figure has been cut by 1/3rd since mandates have been imposed, and Biden maintains requiring shots at the federal level will booster vaccinations even further.