nursing jobs that don't require the covid vaccine

Job boards for workplaces that specifically don't require COVID-19 vaccinations are popping up as more employers have started requiring the shot

• More companies are implementing vaccine mandates for employees after Pfizer's FDA approval.
• Now, job boards are popping up to connect anti-vax workers with employers that don't require the shot.
• One site listed multiple openings for nurses at rural nursing homes that said: "No Jab required."

Job boards for sharing open roles at companies that do not require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 have been popping up online as vaccine mandates are becoming more common.

One board is hosted on Gab, the social media platform that has been embraced by some conservatives and members of the far-right. In an email sent to users on Wednesday, Gab CEO Andrew Torba announced the "No Vax Mandate Job Board."

"This job board is for sharing job openings that do not require employees to inject themselves with an experimental substance or violate their bodily autonomy and religious beliefs in order to retain employment," he wrote, adding that job seekers are welcome to post their resumes in the group.

The group, which had nearly 30,000 members after just two days, was filled with messages from people looking for work that won't require them to be vaccinated.

"Blue state SR Talent Acquisition (Corp recruiter) in large Healthcare company. Have worked remote for several years but mandatory jab required. I won't comply," one post said. "I'm professional and have always received excellent reviews. Anyone need a great recruiter?"

Torba said Gab created the group in light of President Joe Biden urging businesses to implement vaccine mandates after Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine received full approval  from the Food and Drug Administration on Monday.

"I'm calling on more companies in the private sector to step up with vaccine requirements that will reach millions more people," Biden said during remarks at the White House .

Some businesses have done so, with more and more announcing plans to mandate vaccines for employees. Chevron, CVS Health , and Disney World all announced COVID-19 vaccine mandates after the FDA approval.

Some local governments have also instituted mandates for employees, including Chicago and Los Angeles , while more may follow. The mandates typically allow for health and religious exemptions.

Another site marketing itself to job seekers who are looking to avoid vaccine mandates, NoVaxMandate.org , says it believes "no right is more sacred than the right of every individual to the control of their own person, free from all restraint or interference of others."

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The openings listed on the site range from a Pizza Hut delivery driver in Texas to a Hairstylist at a "patriot run small business" in Arizona. There are multiple openings for nurses at rural nursing homes in Wisconsin and Minnesota, with listings that read: "No Jab required. We are awake and serve God."

Other listings included openings in healthcare settings in Texas, New York, and Michigan.

A third site, RedBalloon , touts itself as "the nation's first and only free speech job site." It said it would be "taking a stand against forced vaccinations," announcing in a blog post it would be "ramping up" its operations to connect employers who are looking for employees "regardless of their vaccination status."

Public health officials continue to encourage Americans to get vaccinated as the US confronts a surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the more transmissible Delta variant. A CDC study released Tuesday found unvaccinated people were 29 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 than those who were vaccinated. 

As of Thursday, 51.9% of Americans were fully vaccinated, while 61.1% had received at least one dose, according to the CDC . Officials have expressed hope that the full FDA approval granted this week would result in more people getting the shot.

Have a news tip? Contact this reporter at  [email protected] .

Watch: The COVID-19 vaccine race has caused unprecedented demand for companies that make freezers and glass vials

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Vaccination requirements for healthcare workers

Last updated September 10, 2021

New orders have been issued concerning COVID-19 vaccination requirements for healthcare workers that will affect current, upcoming, and future locum tenens and travel assignments.

Multiple states are now requiring healthcare workers to be vaccinated or be tested once or even twice weekly for the COVID-19 virus in order to work in any healthcare facility.

Various hospitals and systems are also mandating vaccines for all workers and that number continues to grow. You can find a comprehensive list at Becker’s Hospital Review . Some facilities do have an accommodation process for medical or religious exemption requests only.  Facilities are requiring supporting documentation be submitted with vaccine exemption requests, typically a signed letter from either a physician or clergy validating the need for an accommodation to the COVID vaccine requirement.

Vaccination requirements by state

Here is a look at states’ current vaccination requirements as of September 10, 2021:

• Alabama: No requirement
• Alaska: No requirement
• Arizona: No requirement
• Arkansas: No requirement
• California : All health care workers must either show proof of full vaccination by September 30 or be tested at least once per week. 
• Colorado : Unvaccinated state workers must begin serial testing starting September 20.
• Connecticut : Plans to require all unvaccinated nursing home staff members to receive weekly testing. All employees at state and long-term care facilities are required to receive at least one vaccine dose by September 27.
• Delaware : Staff in healthcare facilities will be required to provide proof of vaccination beginning September 30.
• District of Columbia : All healthcare workers must receive at least the first dose of vaccine by September 30.
• Florida: No requirement
• Georgia: No requirement
• Hawaii : All state and county employees must provide vaccination status.
• Idaho: No requirement
• Illinois : All healthcare workers, including workers at public and private nursing homes, must get vaccinated by September 19. Workers' second doses must be received within 30 days of the first dose.
• Indiana: No requirement
• Iowa: No requirement
• Kansas: No requirement
• Kentucky : State-run health care facilities are strongly encouraging vaccination, but it is not currently required.
• Louisiana: No requirement
• Maine : All healthcare workers will be required to be fully vaccinated by October 1.
• Maryland: All nursing home and hospital employees in Maryland will be required to get vaccinated by September 1 or submit to regular testing for COVID-19.
• Massachusetts : Certain non-state operated skilled nursing facilities will require the first does of vaccine by September 1 and full vaccination by October 10. State employees must be vaccinated by October 17.
• Michigan: No requirement
• Minnesota : State agency employees will be required to show proof of vaccination by September 8.
• Mississippi: No requirement
• Missouri: No requirement
• Montana: No requirement
• Nebraska: No requirement
• Nevada : State government employees not vaccinated will be required to take weekly COVID-19 tests.
• New Hampshire: No requirement
• New Jersey : All healthcare workers will be required to be vaccinated by September 7 or submit to twice-weekly testing.
• New Mexico : All workers in certain medical close-contact congregate settings – including hospitals, nursing homes, juvenile justice facilities, rehabilitation facilities, state correctional facilities and more – must be vaccinated against COVID-19.
• New York : Patient-facing healthcare workers at state-run hospitals will be required to get vaccinated for COVID-19 by September 6. All healthcare workers in the state, including staff at hospitals and long-term care facilities, will be required to receive their first dose of a COVID vaccine by September 27. New York has also updated their requirements for vaccine mandates .
• North Carolina : Non-vaccinated state employees will be required to wear masks and undergo weekly testing starting September 1.
• North Dakota: No requirement
• Ohio: No requirement
• Oklahoma: No requirement
• Oregon : Healthcare workers will be required to have proof of completed vaccination by October 18.
• Pennsylvania: Commonwealth employees in state health care facilities and high-risk congregate care facilities will be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by September 7.
• Rhode Island : All employees at RHDOH-licensed facilities will be required to be fully vaccinated no later than October 1.
• South Carolina: No requirement
• South Dakota: No requirement
• Tennessee: No requirement
• Texas: No requirement
• Utah: No requirement
• Virginia : Virginia will require its state workers to show proof that they are fully vaccinated or be tested for COVID-19 every week beginning September 1.
• Vermont : State employees who work with vulnerable populations, such as staff at correctional facilities, the veterans’ home, and a psychiatric hospital, must either be fully vaccinated or undergo regular testing.
• Washington : State employees and workers in private health care and long-term care settings will have until October 18 to be fully vaccinated. Employees who refuse to be vaccinated will be subject to dismissal from employment for failing to meet legal job qualifications.
• West Virginia: No requirement
• Wisconsin: No requirement
• Wyoming: No requirement

As our trusted partner we want to ensure your experience is as easy and seamless as possible as you take on your assignments.

If you have a current or upcoming assignment with a state or facility that requires vaccination, your rep will be reaching out to you soon to obtain your vaccination status and help with the process.

If you have any further questions or need any assistance, please contact your rep, and we will do all we can to make sure your assignment is not interrupted.

About the author

Gerry carpenter.

Gerry Carpenter is the managing editor for CHG Healthcare. He is a 20-year marketing veteran who loves to write, edit, and play with words. He enjoys visiting new places, speaks fluent French, and is slowly learning Portuguese and Japanese.

See all articles from this author

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Making vaccines mandatory for health care workers may upend nursing students' training

For the minority of nursing students who have refused a COVID shot, the Biden administration's vaccine policy could mean they can’t get the training they need in a hospital or other health care venue.

Kaitlyn Hevner expects to complete a 15-month accelerated nursing program at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville in December. For her clinical training this fall, she’s working 12-hour shifts on weekends with medical-surgical patients at a hospital.

But Hevner and nursing students like her who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 are in an increasingly precarious position. Their stance may put their required clinical training and, eventually, their nursing careers at risk.

In early September, the Biden administration announced that workers at health care facilities, including hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, would be required to receive COVID vaccines . Although details of the federal rule aren't expected until sometime this month, some experts predict that student nurses doing clinical training at such sites will have to be vaccinated, too.

Groups representing the nursing profession say “students should be vaccinated when clinical facilities require it” to complete their clinical training. In a policy brief recently released , the National Council of State Boards of Nursing and eight other nurse organizations suggested that students who refuse to be vaccinated and who don’t qualify for an exception because of their religious beliefs or medical issues may be disenrolled from their nursing program or be unable to graduate because they cannot fulfill the clinical requirements.

“We can’t have students in the workplace that can expose patients to a serious illness,” said Maryann Alexander, chief officer for nursing regulation at the national council. “Students can refuse the vaccine, but those who are not exempt maybe should be told that this is not the time to be in a nursing program.”

“You’re going to go into practice and you’re going to be very limited in your jobs if you’re not going to get that vaccine,” Alexander said.

Hevner, 35, set to finish her clinical training in early October, said she doesn’t feel it’s acceptable to benefit from a vaccine that was developed using fetal cells obtained through abortion, which she opposes. (Development of the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine involved a cell line from an abortion; the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines were not developed with fetal cell lines, but some testing of the vaccines reportedly involved fetal cells, researchers say. Many religious leaders, however, support vaccination against COVID.)

With vaccines for nursing students still optional in many health care settings, nursing educators are scrambling to place unvaccinated students in health care facilities that will accept them.

In Fort Pierce, 329 students are in the two-year associate degree nursing program at Indian River State College, said Roseann Maresca, an assistant professor who teaches third-semester students and coordinates their clinical training. Only 150 of them are vaccinated against COVID, she said.

Not all of the eight medical facilities that have contracts with the school require student nurses to be vaccinated.

“It’s been a nightmare trying to move students around this semester” to match them with facilities depending on their vaccination status, Maresca said.

Commonly, health care facilities have long required employees to be vaccinated against various illnesses such as influenza and hepatitis B. The pandemic has added new urgency to these requirements. According to a September tally by FierceHealthcare, more than 170 health systems mandate COVID vaccines for their workforces.

In May, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made it clear that under federal law employers can mandate COVID vaccinations as long as they allow workers to claim religious and medical exemptions.

Under the Biden administration’s COVID plan , roughly 50,000 health care facilities that receive Medicare or Medicaid payments must require workers to be vaccinated. Until the administration releases its draft rule in October , it is unclear how nursing students assigned to health care sites for clinical training will be treated.

But the federal rule published in August that lays out regulations for government hospital payments in 2022 offers clues. It defined health care personnel that should be vaccinated as employees, licensed independent contractors and adult students/trainees and volunteers, said Colin Milligan, director of media relations at the American Hospital Association.

In addition to staff members, the Biden plan says mandates will apply to “individuals providing services under arrangements” at health care sites.

A spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services declined to clarify who would be covered by the Biden plan, noting the agency is still writing the rules.

Nonetheless, vaccination mandates threaten to derail the training of a relatively small proportion of nursing students. A recent survey by the National Student Nurses’ Association reported that 86% of nursing students and 85% of new nursing graduates who responded to an online survey said they had been or planned to be vaccinated against COVID.

But the results varied widely by state, from 100% in New Hampshire and Vermont on the high end to 63% in Oklahoma, 74% in Kentucky and 76% in Florida on the low end. The survey had 7,501 respondents.

Students who don’t want to be vaccinated are asking schools to offer them alternatives to on-site clinical training. They suggest using life-size computer-controlled mannequins or computer-based simulations using avatars, said Marcia Gardner, dean of the nursing school at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, New York.

Last year, when the pandemic led hospitals to close their doors to students, many nursing programs increased simulated clinical training to give nursing students some sort of clinical experience.

But that’s no substitute for working with real patients in a health care setting, educators say. State nursing boards permit simulated clinical study to varying degrees, but none allow such instruction to exceed 50% of clinical training, said Alexander. A multisite study found that nursing students could do up to half their clinical training using simulation with no negative impact on competency.

The policy brief by the council of state nursing boards states that nursing education programs “are not obligated to provide substitute or alternate clinical experiences based on a student’s request or vaccine preference.”

As more nursing students become vaccinated, the issue will grow less acute. And if the Biden plan requires nursing students to be vaccinated to work in hospitals, the number of holdouts is likely to further shrink.

Hevner, the University of North Florida student, said she’s not opposed to vaccines in general and would consider getting a COVID vaccine in the future if she could be assured it wasn’t created using aborted fetal cells. She filed paperwork with the college to get a religious exemption from vaccine requirements. It turned out she didn’t need one because Orange Park Medical Center, where she is doing her clinical training, doesn’t require staffers or nursing students to be vaccinated against COVID “at this time,” said Carrie Turansky, director of public relations and communications for the medical center in the Jacksonville suburb of Orange Park.

Although Hevner opposes getting the vaccine, “I take protecting my patients and protecting myself very seriously,” she said. She gets tested weekly for COVID and always wears an N95 mask in a clinical setting, among other precautions, she said. “But I would ask: Do we give up our own religious rights and our own self-determination just because we work in a health care setting?”

She hopes the profession can accommodate people like her.

“I’m concerned because we’re in such a divisive place,” she said. But she is eager to find a middle ground because, she said, “I think I would make a really great nurse.”

KHN  (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at  KFF  (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

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State-by-State Requirements

The following table shows state-by-state immunization requirements and the types of exemptions allowed.

This information was last verified 03/10/2019.  Please note that changes may have occurred since the last verified date.

Additional information:

• Exemptions Permitted to School and Child Care Immunization Requirements October 2018 : Immunization Action Coalition 
• States with Religious and Philosophical Exemptions from School Immunization Requirements : National Conference of State Legislatures 

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Hospitals Confront the Fallout From Supreme Court Ruling on Vaccine Mandate

They could face more staff shortages, and workers and facilities could feel caught between opposing state and federal policies.

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By Audra D. S. Burch and Reed Abelson

Just days after the Supreme Court’s decision about requiring health care workers to be vaccinated, the nation’s health care systems braced for the possibility of some resistance and more staff shortages — particularly in the states that banned mandates or had none.

The ruling lands not long after the one-year anniversary of widespread vaccine distribution in a country still largely split over how best to protect Americans during a pandemic that has produced multiple surges. In upholding the Biden administration’s requirement for millions of health care workers, the decision could wedge health care workers between opposing state and federal policies.

Local and regional hospitals, as well as multistate hospital chains, have wrestled with the resistance among some nurses and other staff to the Covid vaccines. Many of the larger hospital groups, including the Cleveland Clinic and HCA Healthcare, suspended their own vaccination mandates last month while they awaited the Supreme Court’s decision. And some are still assessing the conflict with murky anti-vaccine requirements imposed in Florida, Texas and some other states.

But the rising infections among staffs in hospitals and nursing homes, among the unvaccinated and the vaccinated, have lent urgency to the mandates even though some hospitals and nursing homes warn of staff defections spurred by enforcing immunization.

Jennifer Bridges, one of the nurses who was fired in late June from Houston Methodist Hospital for not getting the vaccine and now works for a private clinic in that city, said she doesn’t regret her decision. Ms. Bridges said she still considers the vaccine experimental.

“I think your own medical bodily autonomy is very important,” she said. “I don’t think anyone should force you to do something against your will.”

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The Coronavirus Crisis

Nurses are in short supply. employers worry vaccine mandate could make it worse.

Vaccine protesters hold signs outside Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, on June 26. More than 150 employees either quit or were fired for declining the vaccine. Mark Felix/AFP /AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Vaccine protesters hold signs outside Houston Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, on June 26. More than 150 employees either quit or were fired for declining the vaccine.

When Pam Goble first heard that President Biden was mandating the COVID-19 vaccine for health care workers, she had one thought: It's about time.

Goble is owner and CEO of Ability HomeCare, a pediatric home health care agency serving 900 children in San Antonio, Texas.

Of her 261 nurses and therapists, 56 have declined to get the vaccine.

"I am one of those people that really feels everybody should have their choice," says Goble. She did not impose her own vaccine mandate even as the delta variant drove a spike in COVID-19 cases among her employees and the families they serve.

A N.Y. Hospital Will Stop Delivering Babies As Workers Quit Over A Vaccine Mandate

Now she's concerned that her unvaccinated employees may refuse to comply with the federal mandate once it's implemented later this fall.

"We would have to let people go," she says. "I worry if our patients, who are medically fragile children, are going to get the care they need."

Biden's mandate covers 17 million health care workers

Health care workers had priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine back in December 2020, but nine months later, many are still reluctant to get the shots. Vaccination rates remain low in some states and among some subgroups of health care workers such as nursing assistants. As part of his push to get more Americans vaccinated , Biden has essentially told 17 million health care workers: Get vaccinated or get out. He has not offered them the testing option he's given workers in most other industries.

Details about how the federal vaccine mandate will be enforced have yet to be released, but already protests have become regular events outside hospitals, and employers are warning they could see large numbers of workers quit just when they're needed the most.

Biden Lays Out Plan To Mandate Vaccines Or Testing For Millions Of Workers

It's hard to predict how many people will actually quit their jobs over the vaccine mandate. In June, after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by health care workers at Houston Methodist Hospital over its vaccine mandate, more than 150 workers quit or were fired.

Lewis County General Hospital in upstate New York said it would stop delivering babies this month after six people in the maternity department quit over New York's vaccine mandate.

In Maine, where the governor announced a vaccine mandate for health care workers in mid-August, hospitals are so far reporting only a handful of resignations , but enforcement of the mandate is still more than a month away.

Losing even one or two workers would be a problem

"I can't afford to lose anyone," says Ted LeNeave, CEO of Accura HealthCare, which operates 34 nursing homes and assisted living facilities in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota. Because of staffing shortages, they've had to limit admissions, turning down patients coming from hospitals.

With about 1,000 of his employees — 38% of his workforce — unvaccinated, LeNeave is calling on the federal government to provide a testing option for health care workers. He's proposed that those who remain unvaccinated would undergo regular testing and wear full PPE, arguing that it's a safer alternative to losing a lot of workers.

"I just don't see how I can lay off a thousand people," says LeNeave. "I'd have no one to take care of the patients, and there's nowhere to send the patients."

LeNeave has offered his employees incentives to get vaccinated, including the chance to win $1,000 in a lottery, but he says many remain fearful. Some cite false claims about the vaccines' effect on fertility while others want to wait a year or two to see if any problems arise. And then there are those who are against it, period.

In The Fight Against COVID, Health Workers Aren't Immune To Vaccine Misinformation

Health care workers may opt to change professions.

He expects many will change professions to avoid getting the shots. Certified nursing assistants, who bathe, feed and groom nursing home residents, are among the lowest paid workers in the U.S. There are plenty of other options for those who want out.

"Especially with our facilities in rural areas, we could lose nurses to go work at Casey's or Kum & Go" gas station convenient stores. In those jobs, workers would have an option to get tested rather than be vaccinated.

In Texas, Goble is baffled that this far into the pandemic, and with more than a thousand people dying from COVID-19 every day, the vaccines remain so politicized.

"I keep hearing this anti-vaccine argument about freedom," she says. "But I want my freedom to live out from under a pandemic. And I want the children and families we serve to have that right too."

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COVID-19 Vaccine and Clinical Rotations

Requirement.

The University and College of Nursing (CON) do not require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19, but select CON clinical sites require that students training at their sites be vaccinated against COVID-19.

Many clinical sites do not have vaccination requirements and/or may allow students to request an exemption or accommodation from their COVID-19 vaccination requirement. However, depending on placement availability, it may not be possible for CON to place unvaccinated students at these sites.

Because the COVID-19 vaccination is required at select clinical sites, and clinical sites that do not require vaccination and/or allow for exemptions may change their vaccination policy at any time, unvaccinated students must understand that there could be situations where CON will not be able to place an unvaccinated student in a required clinical rotation, even if the student has requested an accommodation.

Accommodations

Some clinical partners may require students to request accommodations/exemptions through the clinical partner’s exemption/accommodation process.

Unvaccinated students will only be directed to request an accommodation, if necessary due to the requirements of the site they are placed at. If, in the future, they are placed at a site with different requirements they may follow the appropriate process for an accommodation or exemption, depending on the assigned clinical sites’ requirements.

If an unvaccinated student that intends to seek an accommodation or exemption is placed at a clinical site that has its own accommodation/exemption process, the student should follow the clinical site’s accommodation/exemption process.

If an unvaccinated student that intends to seek an accommodation or exemption is placed at a clinical site that requires students to provide an exemption approved by the student’s educational institution, the student should contact the Clinical Compliance Coordinators, as soon as possible. They will provide directions on the next steps for requesting a religious or medical accommodation with the CON/University.

If an unvaccinated student is placed at a clinical site that does not have a vaccination requirement or allows students to decline the vaccine (where no accommodation or exemption is required), they will not be directed to request an accommodation or exemption.

If a clinical partner does not allow exemptions or accommodations to its vaccination requirement or requires students to go through the clinical partner’s exemption/accommodation process and the student’s request is denied by the clinical partner, the student may still request an accommodation through the University. However, the university cannot grant exemptions or accommodations to a clinical partner’s vaccination requirements.

• If placement at an alternative clinical site is not a possible accommodation, the only available accommodations may be deferral or temporary withdrawal from the program.

Advanced Program Students (RN-MS, Graduate Certificates and Doctoral Programs)

Most placements are made on a case-by-case basis, so be sure to check the requirements of your clinical facility. If you are not vaccinated and are placed at a rotation site that requires students training at the site to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and does not provide for or allow accommodations or exemptions from this requirement, please contact the Clinical Compliance Coordinators and Clinical Placement Coordinators as soon as possible.

For questions or further information, please contact our Clinical Compliance Coordinators at [email protected] and include your program name and ‘Compliance’ in the subject line.

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What Every Worker Needs to Know About Vaccine Mandates

Violating employers' covid-19 vaccination policies could cost employees their jobs — and more.

Editor’s note: On Jan. 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate for large private employers could not proceed, but the court allowed the mandate for workers at health care facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds to take effect. For more information on those rulings, go to  this article . The following article, published before those court decisions, offers context on COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

As people start to return to office buildings after working remote for more than a year in some cases, more employers are taking steps to deter the spread of COVID-19 in their workplaces. One practice that has gained momentum is the requirement that workers either get vaccinated or submit to regular testing for COVID-19.

The increased use of vaccine mandates is a big change from early 2021, when most companies were merely encouraging their workers to get shots, with some businesses offering small stipends or paid time off as additional incentives to get the vaccine.

"Employers initially began with voluntary vaccine programs because they thought that there would be excitement and enthusiasm to be vaccinated,” says Diane Seltzer Torre, an employment law attorney with the Seltzer Law Firm. “The problem became that enthusiasm was not the case for certain regions, and businesses had to start looking at workers not being vaccinated with [the delta] variant coming into play."

Hoping both to make their workplaces safer and prevent the widespread temporary shutdowns that caused extensive unemployment last year, more employers are now making it a requirement for their employees to get vaccinated.

"Every organization, every company wants to ensure that they can create the workplace conditions for people to come to work and do their best work, and part of doing the best work is providing emotional and psychological safety,” says Margie Warrell, a workplace policy expert and author of Stop Playing Safe: How to Be Braver in Your Work, Leadership and Life . “Given the concerns around the spread of COVID, many organizations are making the judgment call that the upsides of mandating vaccination are going to offset the downsides."

Here are the things workers should know now about vaccine mandates:

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You legally can be required to either get vaccinated or be tested for COVID-19 frequently.

When the vaccines first became available to the public earlier this year, many legal experts said that employers could issue vaccine mandates if they chose to do so, as long as they provided exemptions for workers who either had medical conditions or sincerely held religious beliefs that prevented them from being vaccinated. And both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) said that federal laws do not prohibit employers from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations. The U.S. Department of Justice also recently stated that employers can require their workers to get vaccinated .

"An employer can require a vaccine for an employee to keep their job because it has been determined as a matter of public policy and law, that COVID-19 is a major public health concern, and the spread of it can be minimized through the use of vaccinations,” says Jay Rosenlieb, an employment law attorney at the Klein DeNatale Goldner law group in California.

Perhaps the tipping point for employer vaccine mandates occurred in July 2021, when President Biden announced that federal employees and contractors would either have to be vaccinated or comply with an ongoing process of being tested for COVID-19, wearing a mask and following physical distancing policies. With more than 2 million employees across the nation (28 percent of whom are age 55 and older), the federal government is the country's largest employer.

On September 9, Biden announced that the administration was making workplace vaccination requirements even more rigorous. Federal executive branch employees and all federal contractors will no longer have the option to submit to regular COVID testing instead of being vaccinated. And workers at health care facilities that receive federal funding from Medicare or Medicaid also will now be required to get vaccinated.

On November 4, the White House also released its vaccination requirements for private employers. Workers at private businesses that employ at least 100 people will be required to either be vaccinated or undergo weekly tests for coronavirus infection, under the new rule from the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA). All workers at these companies will be eligible for paid time off to get vaccinated. This requirement has been suspended, pending the outcome of legal proceedings. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about the mandate on January 7. If the requirement is deemed to be legal, employees would be required to be vaccinated or submit weekly tests starting February 9.

More than 80 million people nationwide ultimately could be affected by this new workplace vaccination requirement. Private companies that don’t comply with this new federal rule could face steep fines.

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It should be pointed out that many state and local governments currently are seeking to enact policies that in various ways could affect what employers in their jurisdiction are permitted to do with vaccine mandates. For example, in May, Montana passed a law that  bars employers from issuing vaccine mandates  or even asking a worker whether he or she has received the shots. It's unclear whether these new laws would survive court challenges, which so far have upheld vaccine mandates as legal. And while OSHA has suspended its guidelines for private employers, the White House did still assert that its requirements would preempt all state and local laws about COVID-19 vaccines should its vaccine-or-testing mandate withstand court challenges

You could get fired if you don't comply with the vaccination/testing policy.

The choice of whether to get vaccinated for COVID-19 can be a deeply personal decision, and employers take that into consideration when they set the policy for their workplace. “Every organization knows there will be people who don't want to get vaccinated or — even if they agree with vaccination — don't like it being mandated,” Warrell says.

Even so, once a company establishes a vaccination policy, workers generally either have to comply or risk losing their jobs, unless they qualify for a medical or religious exemption. In one high-profile example, CNN recently fired three unvaccinated employees who allegedly were violating the company's vaccination policy by coming into the office.

While the law on vaccinations and unemployment benefits is still taking shape, legal experts say if you lost your job because you were unwilling to comply with your employer's policy, you likely wouldn't be able to collect unemployment benefits.

"That's an open issue, and it's going to be determined on a state-by-state basis,” Rosenlieb says. “But the general feeling is that if [being unvaccinated] is a matter of personal decision as opposed to an actual medical condition that's preventing you from getting the shots, then you run a very serious risk of being without a job and without unemployment benefits."

Adds Seltzer Torre: “The employee, by not being vaccinated, would be violating a company policy, and could absolutely be terminated for that reason and that would be considered the kind of misconduct that would disqualify the person from unemployment benefits."

Several states recently have taken action to clarify whether workers who lose their jobs because they refuse to get vaccinated are eligible for unemployment benefits. Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, and Tennessee have all passed laws that allow workers who are fired for refusing COVID-19 vaccine mandates to collect unemployment benefits.

Kenneth Terrell covers employment, age discrimination, work and jobs, careers, and the federal government for AARP. He previously worked for the Education Writers Association and U.S. News & World Report , where he reported on government and politics, business, education, science and technology, and lifestyle news.

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