Biden-Era COVID Vaccine Mandate Records Erased in Trump Rollback

The Trump administration has directed all federal agencies to delete records related to employees’ COVID-19 vaccination status, any noted noncompliance with pandemic-era mandates, and requests for vaccine exemptions.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued the directive Friday in a memo to department and agency heads, instructing them to eliminate both physical and electronic vaccine-related records from personnel files.

🚨 BREAKING: President Trump has just ORDERED all federal agencies to DELETE employees’ COVID-19 vaccination statuses

They also must delete any records of vaccine non-compliance and exemptions

FINALLY! NOBODY should be discriminated against for refusing the vax! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/ARw1viJLwN

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) August 8, 2025

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The policy change takes effect immediately.

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OPM said the move responds to recent litigation and is part of President Donald Trump’s broader effort to reverse pandemic-era measures put in place under Joe Biden.

“Things got out of hand during the pandemic, and federal workers were fired, punished, or sidelined for simply making a personal medical decision,” OPM Director Scott Kupor said in a statement.

“That should never have happened.”

Kupor added, “Thanks to President Trump’s leadership, we’re making sure the excesses of that era do not have lingering effects on federal workers.”

Under the new order, agencies are prohibited from using any employee’s COVID-19 vaccination history in employment decisions, including hiring, promotions, discipline, or termination. All such records must be deleted within 90 days.

The directive also gives employees the option to request that their vaccination history remain on file, but those requests must be submitted within the same 90-day period.

Agencies are required to certify compliance with the order by September 8.

Biden implemented the federal worker vaccine mandate through an executive order signed in September 2021, requiring all federal employees to receive the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of employment.

In January 2022, a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction blocking the mandate.

At the time, the Biden-Harris administration reported that nearly 98% of covered federal employees had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

The legal battle continued into the following year.

In April 2022, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the injunction, effectively reinstating the mandate.

However, in 2023, the full Fifth Circuit Court struck down the requirement entirely.

Biden formally rescinded the federal worker vaccine mandate in May 2023, months after declaring in a September 2022 “60 Minutes” interview that the pandemic “is over.”

The OPM’s directive marks a formal end to recordkeeping practices tied to those mandates and is one of several recent steps by the Trump administration aimed at dismantling policies enacted during the pandemic.

Agencies are now preparing to comply with the order, with personnel offices tasked with ensuring complete removal of vaccine-related data from official employee files by the deadline.