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A federal appeals court on Saturday temporarily halted the Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine requirement for businesses with 100 or more workers. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration that those workers be vaccinated by January 4 or face mask requirements and weekly tests. (11/6)

The Republican attorneys general of Texas, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Utah, as well as several private companies, filed petitions on Friday challenging the mandate in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The court on Saturday ordered the vaccine and testing requirements halted pending review “because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate.” (Kimball, 11/6)

The stay, issued by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Louisiana, doesn’t have an immediate impact. The first major deadline in the new rule is Dec. 5, when companies with at least 100 employees must require unvaccinated employees to wear masks indoors. Businesses have until Jan. 4 to mandate Covid vaccinations or start weekly testing of their workers. But Saturday’s move provided momentum for a wide coalition of opponents of the rule, who have argued that it is unconstitutional. (Hirsch and Grullón Paz, 11/6)

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Sunday defended the Biden administration’s workplace rules on vaccine mandates after a federal court blocked a new Occupational Safety and Health Administration policy. Citing historical precedents dating back to George Washington during the American Revolution, Murthy said President Joe Biden had faith in both the legality of the mandate and the effectiveness of such requirements. “The president and the administration wouldn't have put these requirements in place if they didn't think they were appropriate and necessary,” Murthy told host Martha Raddatz on ABC’s “This Week.” “And the administration is certainly prepared to defend them.” (Cohen, 11/7)

White House chief of staff Ron Klain said he was confident the courts will uphold the validity of the Biden administration's new vaccine rules that apply to private businesses with 100 or more employees, certain health care workers and federal contractors, after a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the requirements on Saturday. "I'm quite confident that when this finally gets fully adjudicated, not just a temporary order, the validity of this requirement will be upheld," Klain told NBC's Chuck Todd on "Meet the Press." "It's common sense ... If OSHA can tell people to wear a hard hat on the job, to be careful around chemicals, it can put in place these simple measures to keep our workers safe." (Wright, 11/7)

Federal agencies have yet to act on the requests piling into managers’ inboxes from vaccine resisters seeking accommodations that would allow them to continue their jobs unvaccinated rather than face the possibility of being fired as the administration has threatened. A far smaller number of employees have asked for exemptions on medical grounds, officials said, prompting what are likely to be more clear-cut decisions on whether to grant them. The number of religious objectors ranges from a little more than 60 people at the Education Department to many thousands among the 38,000-strong workforce at the Bureau of Prisons, according to federal employee union officials. (Rein, Duncan and Horton, 11/7)

President Joe Biden is pushing forward with a massive plan to require millions of private sector employees to get vaccinated by early next year. But first, he has to make sure workers in his own federal government get the shot. About 4 million federal workers are to be vaccinated by Nov. 22 under the president's executive order. Some employees, like those at the White House, are nearly all vaccinated. But the rates are lower at other federal agencies, particularly those related to law enforcement and intelligence, according to the agencies and union leaders. And some resistant workers are digging in, filing lawsuits and protesting what they say is unfair overreach by the White House. (Long and Sisak, 11/7)

Most employees favor President Joe Biden's efforts to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for employees at large companies, and many workers would consider reporting a co-worker for violating the vaccine rules, a new study suggests. ... A vast majority of employees view vaccinations as a political issue, which can be tough to navigate in a professional workplace, the survey also found. An overwhelming 84% of employees said politics influences their company leaders’ handling of vaccine, mask and testing policies. In fact, the top reason people reported for staying unvaccinated was a lack of trust in the government. (Shen, 11/7)

The brewing culture war over vaccine mandates now threatens to boil over after the Biden administration set a January deadline for all employers with more than 100 employees to require shots or regular testing. The planned mandates — which also include even more stringent standards for health care workers —would impact more than 100 million Americans, or more than two-thirds of the workforce. (Reed, 11/8)