This afternoon, President Biden released new rules for all federal employees regarding COVID-19 vaccines. In the past couple of days, there has been a lot of concern regarding vaccines being mandated, so here’s the bottom line up front: federal employees are not mandated to get the vaccine.
The White House released a statement explaining the rules President Biden announced today, and below is a screenshot of the relevant section.
As you can see, anyone who is not vaccinated will have to get tested and wear masks. Now, we don’t know the type of test or if it will be done at the stations or elsewhere, but we’ll sort that out in the coming days and weeks.
Brandon Judd, the national president of the NBPC, released this statement earlier today:
While it appears a vaccine mandate might be legal, some employees are very concerned, and with good reason. It is one thing to mandate a vaccine that has full FDA approval. It is quite another to order a person to get an experimental vaccine.
While the vast majority of agents that I know, including myself, are vaccinated, we did so voluntarily. We believe mandating a vaccine that hasn’t been fully FDA approved is wrong. We support those who are hesitant to get an experimental vaccine and we respect their opinions and beliefs.
Experimental vaccines should be a personal choice with each individual weighing the pros and cons, not a mandate from federal bureaucrats.
In short, it’s not a vaccine mandate if the vaccine is not mandated — employees may continue to choose to not get vaccinated.
We will provide updates as soon as more details become available.