The Biden Administration said Monday that the federal government won't suspend or fire employees for violating the Covid-19 vaccine mandate until January, as the vaccination rate for federal workers is well above the national average.
On December 21, 2020 in Newark, Delaware, then-president-elect Joe Biden received a Covid-19 Vaccine.
The images are from the same company.
The deadline for federal employees to get vaccinations against Covid-19 was November 22, but the Biden Administration is encouraging federal agencies to delay suspending or firing most workers who haven't complied with the mandate until next year, an Office of Management and Budget spokesman told Forbes.
The education and counseling period will be offered by government agencies next month.
OMB said its deadline and strategy hasn't changed, and that the government's vaccine guidelines instruct federal agencies to counsel non compliant employees before they are reprimanded or fired.
OMB said in a Monday statement that it is seeing a strong increase in compliance and believes this is the best approach to vaccinations.
The number is big.
96.3%. The percentage of federal workers who have received at least one Covid-19 vaccine shot or applied for a religious, medical or other exception is stated by the OMB. The partial vaccination rate for all adults nationwide is just over half, but some government employees are at least partially vaccine free.
The key background.
The vaccine mandate was announced by President Joe Biden. The rules apply to over 3 million civilian employees and military personnel, and are part of a broader push to control a rise in coronaviruses cases. Some Republican lawmakers have urged the military not to take action against unvaccinated troops, after a labor union criticized the mandate in a Washington Post story. According to federal data, the vast majority of federal workers have complied with the vaccine mandate.
There is a structure called the Tangent.
OMB says that the vaccine rates vary by agency. Almost all of the Agency for International Development staff are protected against Covid-19, whereas only a small percentage of the Department of Agriculture staff are. The Department of Defense has 93.4% of employees who are vaccine free.
The Biden Administration hopes to require a broad range of private employees to either get vaccinations against Covid-19 or face regular testing by early next year, but those policies face legal uncertainty. The vaccine mandate for employers with 100 or more workers was temporarily delayed by an appeals court. A vaccine mandate for healthcare facilities that participate in Medicare or Medicaid was temporarily blocked by a federal judge on Monday.
A court blocks a vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.
