On December 17, 2021, in an opinion issued late Friday night, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ended the court ordered pause on OSHA’s vaccine mandate. Previously, the Fifth Circuit had put the vaccine mandate (OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard) on hold, and all federal litigation was consolidated to the Sixth Circuit. The Sixth Circuit’s ruling last Friday means that the OSHA ETS is now poised to go into effect with mandatory compliance in January 2022.

On December 7, 2021, a federal judge in Georgia granted a request for injunction that paused the implementation of the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors. Unlike an earlier case from the District of Kentucky that paused the mandate in only a few states, this recent order is applicable to the entire nation.