On November 10, 2021, the Biden Administration announced another change to the deadline for federal contractors to become fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as required by Executive Order 14042.  The deadline is now January 18, 2022, meaning that employees must receive their final vaccine dose by January 4, 2022.

This is now the third deadline for vaccination set by the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force.  In its initial Guidance, the Task Force established a December 8, 2021 deadline.  However, when the Biden Administration issued the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) vaccination mandate on November 4, 2021, it also pushed back the deadline for federal contractor employees to become fully vaccinated until January 4, 2021 in order to conform Executive Order 14042’s deadline to OSHA’s and CMS’s deadlines. The Task Force did not provide any explanation for the disparity between the January 4 and January 18 dates.