Since President Biden issued a vaccine mandate for the federal workforce as a way to curb the COVID-19 pandemic and prevent deaths, 92% of federal employees have received at least one dose of the FDA-approved anti-COVID vaccines.
The Sept. 9 executive order mandated that federal workers be fully vaccinated by Nov. 22 with limited exceptions. The mandate covers 3.5 million federal workers across the country and around the world.
The administration, however, has just announced that they will be deferring suspensions and removals related to President Biden’s vaccine mandate until after the holiday season. AFGE continues to encourage all our members who are able to obtain one of the FDA-approved anti-COVID vaccines as soon as they possibly can.
The U.S. is leading the world in both COVID cases and deaths. As of Nov. 28, it has registered more than 48 million COVID cases and 777,000 deaths.
“This week’s deadline wasn’t an end point,” said the Office of Personnel Management in a vaccine mandate update issued Nov. 24. “For those employees who are not yet in compliance, agencies are beginning a period of education and counseling, followed by additional enforcement steps, consistent with guidance from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force and the Office of Personnel Management.”
“At any point, if an employee gets their first shot or submits an exception request, agencies will pause further enforcement to give the employee a reasonable amount of time to become fully vaccinated or to process the exception request. This next stage of the process will not result in disruptions to Government services and operations and will result in more employees becoming vaccinated.”
Here’s a breakdown by agency:
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