Wilkes-Barre, PA - Jan 5 2022: A health worker is seen holding a bundle of Covid-19 test samples before being sent to the lab. WH guidance states that that prior policies on safety protocols based on vaccination status remains in effect despite a court injunction of the vaccination mandate. Image: Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/Shutterstock
The Biden administration has stressed to agencies that workplace safety protocols were not affected by the injunction against its Coronavirus vaccine mandate for the federal workforce and that they should continue enforcing those policies.
Shortly after the January 21 date of the injunction, the administration told agencies not to take disciplinary actions against employees deemed not in compliance or to continue to process requests for exceptions, pending a possible reversal on appeal. (The injunction does not apply to agencies that had issued their own similar mandates predating the government-wide executive order, which leaves similar policies in effect for some 370,000 employees at the VA and some 25,000 at HHS involved with health care.)
Further guidance from the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force adds that prior policies on “safety protocols based on vaccination status—including guidance on protocols related to masking, distancing, travel, testing, and quarantine—remains in effect.”
That guidance adds to prior instructions regarding records of employees’ status, saying that agencies still “should collect information regarding whether their employees are up to date with COVID-19 vaccines, including, for example, the type of vaccine administered, the number of additional primary series doses or booster shots received, date of administration of each additional primary series dose or booster shot, and the submission of documentation showing proof of additional primary series doses or booster shots.”
Those instructions meanwhile repeat the prior statement that when providing information on their status, “employees should also be required to certify under penalty of perjury that the information they are submitting is true and correct.”
The task force said that collection of such information is needed in part because safety protocols related to quarantine of those with suspected, probable or confirmed infections “are contingent in part on whether one is up to date with COVID-19 vaccines, including recommended additional primary series doses and booster shots.”
It also says an agency may require an employee who has finished a quarantine period to “take a viral antigen test prior to returning to a federal workplace or interacting with the public as part of their official duties.” That may include requiring tests twice over a three-day period with at least 24 hours and no more than 48 hours between tests before returning.
It adds: “Even after ending isolation, for 10 full days after their first day of symptoms, or after the date of a positive viral test for asymptomatic individuals, an individual who has ended their isolation should wear a well-fitting mask when around others, avoid eating and drinking around others, avoid environments such as dining facilities and gyms where they may be unmasked around others, avoid travel, avoid people who are immunocompromised or at high risk for severe disease, and avoid nursing homes and other high-risk settings.”
The new guidance further clarifies when agencies may conduct diagnostic testing of someone with symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or who had a recent known or suspected exposure.
“This includes, for example, testing of individuals who have symptoms of COVID-19, which should be done as soon as possible after symptoms development, and testing of individuals who have come into close contact with someone with COVID-19, which should be done to check for infection at least 5 days after the individual last had close contact with someone with COVID-19 (the date of the last close contact is considered day 0),” it says.
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