Task Force Signals Flexibility On Contractor Vaccination Mandate In New FAQs

Federal government contractors and subcontractors have been scrambling for weeks to try to digest and implement the COVID-19 safety measures issued by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force (the "Task Force") in the wake of the Biden Administration's Executive Order 14042, Ensuring Adequate COVID Safety Protocols for Federal Contractors.  Our prior analysis of the Task Force's Guidelines are available here, here, and here.  On November 1, 2021, the Task Force issued additional guidance on some key questions with which contractors have been grappling.

As previously reported, among other things, the Task Force's Guidelines require contractors to have their employees who work on or in connection with covered contracts, and those who work with them in contractor facilities, vaccinated by December 8, 2021.  Since the Guidelines were issued, government agencies have been issuing contract modification notices and incorporating the new requirements into existing contracts.