WASHINGTON – The Trump administration has ordered all federal agencies to scrub any records related to workers’ COVID-19 vaccination status and other compliance with pandemic mandates.
The order rescinding vaccine record retention requirements was announced in an Aug. 8 memorandum by Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management in a memo to all federal department and agency heads. They have until Sept. 8 “to report their compliance,” Kupor wrote.
“Effective immediately, federal agencies may not use an individual’s COVID-19 vaccine status, history of noncompliance with prior COVID-19 vaccine mandates, or requests for exemptions from such mandates in any employment-related decisions, including but not limited to hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination,” Kupor wrote in the official memorandum to all heads and acting heads of federal departments and agencies.
Kupor said the move was part of the Trump administrationʼs broader effort to reverse “many harmful policies” of former President Joe Biden’s administration.
More: Leading doctors sue RFK Jr. over COVID-19 vaccines. Here’s why.
“Things got out of hand during the pandemic, and federal workers were fired, punished, or sidelined for simply making a personal medical decision. That should never have happened,” Kupor said in a post on X. “Thanks to @POTUS’s leadership, we’re making sure the excesses of that era do not have lingering effects on federal workers.”
Also, due to document preservation requirements related to recent litigation, Kupor said, “all information related to an employee’s COVID-19 vaccine status, noncompliance with prior vaccine mandates, or exemption requests must be expunged” from all employees’ official personnel folders unless, within 90 days, any individual “affirmatively opts out of this removal.”
The White House did not respond immediately to a USA TODAY request for comment.
Kupor’s memo cited a Sept. 9, 2021, executive order from Biden directing federal agencies to require COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of federal employment. While Biden subsequently repealed that order, his Office of Personnel Management soon after issued a new policy reminding agencies that the executive order could no longer be enforced.
A federal judge in December 2021 issued a nationwide injunction against a vaccine mandate for federal contractors, ruling that Biden likely exceeded his authority by imposing the requirement.
In May, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the COVID-19 vaccine is no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. But the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was still recommending COVID vaccines for healthy children, according to its published immunization schedule.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump admin orders fed agencies to scrub worker COVID vaccine records
The post Trump admin orders federal agencies to scrub all worker COVID vaccination records appeared first on USA TODAY.
