An increasing number of entities are rolling back their vaccine requirements following federal court rulings that halted President Biden's nationwide mandate, and on Tuesday one close to Biden's heart announced they'd suspend their vaccine mandate for employees: Amtrak.
From @Amtrak on vaccine policy– Testing Option Now Temporarily Available-> "Amtrak is announcing today that we will revert to our original vaccine mandate policy announced on August 11, which will allow, on an interim basis, for testing as an alternative to getting vaccinated."
— Mike Emanuel ???? (@MikeEmanuelFox) December 14, 2021
According to Reuters, which broke the news after reviewing a memo from Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn, "fewer than 500 active Amtrak employees are not in compliance," but it's rolling back the mandate anyway. The passenger railroad corporation's vaccine requirement — put in place to comply with President Biden's mandate — led Amtrak to tell Congress last week that it found itself "proactively needing to temporarily reduce some train frequencies across our network."
Breaking: @Amtrak suspends vaccine mandate and no longer expects to have to cut some service in January pic.twitter.com/zBbj6QXjBg
— davidshepardson (@davidshepardson) December 14, 2021
The announcement of the mandate's suspension came from Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn, who also bragged about having 95.7 percent of its employees fully vaccinated, or accommodated with an exception, before he explained the change in tact that bucks what President Biden — a man who loves Amtrak perhaps even more than he loves ice cream — had forced on companies:
Recently a federal district court decision halted the enforcement of the Executive Order for federal contractors. This caused the company to reevaluate our policy and to address the uncertainty about the federal requirements that apply to Amtrak.
Amtrak is announcing today that we will revert to our original vaccine mandate policy announced on August 11, which will allow, on an interim basis, for testing as an alternative to getting vaccinated.
Flynn's letter further explained that "Amtrak will allow employees who have accommodations to continue working, as long as they submit a negative COVID-19 test weekly or more frequently, as required," a testing option Amtrak says "is expected to remain available regardless of the outcome of the executive order litigation." Employees who have chosen not to get vaccinated but haven't received an accommodation will be offered the testing option "on a temporary basis, pending the outcome of the executive order litigation or further statutory, administration or regulatory actions."
Calling its suspension of the vaccine mandate "appropriate and prudent... given the recent court decision and the continuing and evolving pandemic," Amtrak also had welcome news for its customers: "After reviewing our system service plans in light of these changes, we do not anticipate having system-wide service impacts in January."
In its previous warning to Congress, Amtrak officials had said there would be issues keeping its full schedule running if those who chose not to vaccinated had to be sidelined by Biden's mandate. The greatest impact was expected on Amtrak's long-haul routes that take multiple days to complete, and Amtrak had predicted the service disruptions would last from January until March.