The updates on federal vaccine mandates being stayed are fast and furious. While time will tell if companies will personally choose to require COVID-19 vaccines, the federal mandate for contractors appears to be on pause.
How to Interpret the Changes
While more will continue to unfold, here is the latest known:
Federal Contractor Mandate
The Federal Contractor Mandate has been stayed nationwide by a Federal District Court Judge in Georgia, who used the trade group Associated Builders and Contractors, whose membership is nationwide, to broaden his authority. The group joined the lawsuit post filing as an intervener. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid mandates which applied to workers in most healthcare settings that receive Medicare and Medicaid, have also be effectively stayed nationwide.
OSHA Mandate
The OSHA mandate for vaccinations or testing of workers in companies with 100 more employees has been stayed in the 6th circuit, causing OSHA to pause implementation and enforcement of the mandates.
State Imposed Mandates
State imposed mandates on workers in the public and other sectors still have survived in many states. The stays on federal mandates, while at this time has not been pushed to individual states using constitutional legal jujitsu, certainly still should have some trickle down effect with policy makers and elected officials, as we have seen in places like Phoenix, where the vaccine mandate has been put on pause.
Federal Employees
The only other mandate of note that is still standing is the requirement of federal employees to get vaccinated. This does not seem to be an issue as over 95% of them, according to most statistics, have had at least one dose of the vaccine.
Potential Policy Changes Ahead
So in essence, the Georgia ruling is a major development in the status of federal mandates and could cause fast track of the issue up to higher appellate courts or it could cause a policy change by the current administration due to lack of popular support. Changes and updates on this issue seem to occur every other day, as a new court ruling comes to the forefront of the legal news.
