It's been a whiplash last few weeks on several fronts—COVID being the culprit behind much of it. Now, businesses are left confused by the back and forth legal saga of the Biden Administration's COVID vaccine mandate. Last week an appeals court lifted a previously imposed block on the federal mandate—that is to say, the mandate was back in effect for large employers nationwide—but new appeals piled on immediately, throwing the mandate back into legal limbo. 

• “My clients are totally confused as, quite frankly, am I,” Erin McLaughlin, a labor and employment lawyer at Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney, told the New York Times. “My sense is that there are a lot of employers scrambling to try and put their [own] mandate programs in place.”

A Changing Landscape

The federal mandate is not the only COVID protocol employers need to figure out. States have been passing their own legislation (some banning mandates, others enforcing them) regarding vaccines, and the very question of what constitutes full vaccination has been thrown in the air with the new Omicron variant (to boost or not to boost, that is the question). And with cases spiking again, decisions need to be made fast.

The Verdict

Wherever the mandate lands in courts, it seems more and more large firms (airlines, banks, retailers, etc.) are creating their own mandates for employees. What's more? Those who require employees to vaccinate seem to be successful in their push.