2. Does the rule apply to COVID-19 vaccines?

Earlier in the pandemic, there were some doubts about whether the general rule would apply to COVID-19 vaccines because the first vaccines that became available in the U.S. have not been fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration. They have received an emergency use authorization, which is temporary permission to commercialize the vaccines because of the public health crisis the U.S. is facing. This is the first time emergency use authorization has been granted to a new vaccine. For this reason, some legal scholars questioned whether existing laws applied to temporarily authorized vaccines.

That question was addressed when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued guidelines that said employers have the right to impose a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy.

From a legal perspective, this view is based on the fact that the law allows employers to impose requirements to make sure that employees don’t pose threats to the “health or safety of other individuals in the workplace.” The EEOC treated emergency use vaccines as part of the sets of measures that employers are able to mandate in order to accomplish this goal.

Therefore, the general rule applies and employers should be able to require that employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, within certain limits. These limits – including the exceptions below – are the same as the general exemptions applicable to any employer-mandated vaccination.

3. Are there religious exemptions?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act established that if an employee has a sincerely held religious belief incompatible with vaccination, the employer cannot require that employee to be vaccinated. The EEOC has traditionally interpreted the concept of “religious belief” very broadly. Vaccine refusal cannot, however, be a personal or politically motivated belief.

If an employee qualifies for a religious exemption, the employer must then try to reasonably accommodate the employee. An example of an accommodation would be for the employer to have the employee switch from in-person to remote work while COVID-19 poses risks to public health.

However, the employer does not have to grant an accommodation if doing so would result in “undue hardship.” Typical cases of undue hardship include situations in which the accommodation would compromise the health and safety of other employees or in which implementing the accommodation is too costly or logistically burdensome. In case of a dispute over what constitutes an undue hardship for the employer, a court would typically be asked to resolve it based on the cost of offering the accommodation, as well as how difficult it is for the employer to implement it.