The Biden administration has announced that it will withdraw the COVID-19 vaccine or testing mandate for large businesses. This announcement comes in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to block the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) enforcement of the emergency temporary standard (ETS) issued last year.

The administration’s withdrawal is a final chapter to months-long legal challenges for the ETS. Businesses have been following the twists and turns of the court proceedings, which created major uncertainty around implementation and enforcement. GLI believes that this will be a relief for businesses who have dealt with uncertainty regarding their responsibilities around the mandate since it was announced last fall.

While this is the end of the ETS vaccine mandate, OSHA has stated that they are considering whether the vaccine or test rule should be enacted on a non-temporary basis which they believe would be more likely to survive a legal challenge.

GLI has closely tracked the implementation and potential impact of the vaccine and testing mandate on Greater Louisville businesses. Vaccines are a powerful tool to keep our economy running, but there were significant concerns about the negative and unintended consequences to businesses that are already dealing with critical workforce shortages and supply chain disruptions. GLI encourages the Greater Louisville community to continue to get vaccinated and boosted so that the negative impact of COVID on our economy can be mitigated.