Government Agencies Ordered to Erase All Federal Employee COVID Vaccination Records

U.S. government agencies have been ordered to erase any records of employees’ COVID-19 vaccination status, noncompliance with pandemic-era mandates, or vaccine exemption requests, according to an Aug. 8, 2025 memo from U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor. Issued in response to recent litigation, the directive comes four years after the previous administration required federal workers to be vaccinated as a condition of employment. As part of the current administration’s effort to “reverse harmful pandemic-era policies,” it also prohibits agencies from considering an employee’s vaccine history in any hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination decision.^{1 2}

The OPM memo states:

Effective immediately, federal agencies may not use an individual’s COVID-19 vaccine status, history of noncompliance with prior COVID-19 vaccine mandates, or requests for exemptions from such mandates in any employment-related decisions, including but not limited to hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination.

Employees may request their records be deleted now or “at any subsequent time,” ensuring even those who initially choose to retain the information can have it expunged later.²

The Executive Order by former President Joe Biden on Sept. 9, 2021 that required all federal employees to get COVID shotss.³ faced a series of legal challenges before being struck down. A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction halting its enforcement in January 2022. That ruling was briefly overturned by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit that April, but in 2023, the full court reversed the panel’s decision, effectively ending the mandate. President Biden formally rescinded the COVID shot mandate for federal workers in May 2023.¹

Mandates Harmful, Overreaching

The move also follows the release of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic’s final report in December 2024, which called the mandates “overreaching” and harmful to public trust, military readiness, childhood development, and the economy. The 520-page report faulted public health officials for overselling the vaccines’ ability to prevent infection, ignoring natural immunity, and suppressing dissenting views, even by credentialed experts.^{4 5}

One of the report’s most notable case studies was the U.S. military. As of March 2023, about 17,000 service members had refused the vaccine; roughly half were discharged, and thousands of exemption requests remained unresolved for months. After the mandate was repealed, the Department of Defense (DoD) launched a 2025 campaign to bring individuals who refused to get the COVID shot back—offering reinstatement at their previous rank, with back pay and benefits, if they met current standards and agreed to serve at least two more years. Despite these incentives, response rates were dismal. Only about 113 of more than 8,200 eligible military service members have rejoined. For the subcommittee, this outcome highlighted one of its core conclusions: that the effects of pandemic-era mandates would “be felt for years,” particularly in sectors like the armed forces, where readiness and retention are critical to national security.^{4 5}

Beyond vaccine mandates, the report criticized other pandemic measures, arguing that prolonged lockdowns, social distancing rules, and mask mandates were often not grounded in strong scientific evidence—with former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci, MD later acknowledging that the six-foot social distancing guideline was “made up”—and that these policies inflicted “immeasurable harm” on the economy, public health, and especially the development of children and young adults.⁵

The report also raised concerns about the proposed World Health Organization “Pandemic Treaty,” warning that the current draft does not address major shortcomings revealed by COVID and that its negotiation process has lacked transparency.

The OPM’s expungement order’s language mirrors many of the same concerns raised in the subcommittee’s final report. “Things got out of hand during the pandemic, and federal workers were fired, punished, or sidelined for simply making a personal medical decision,” Kupor said in a statement. “That should never have happened.”¹

Government agencies are ordered to report their compliance with expunging COVID vaccine-related information on all federal workers, from both physical and electronic personnel files, by Sept. 8, 2025.^{1 2}

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