Vaccinated Federal Employees Still Limited to Mission Critical Travel
All federal employee official travel, including for those who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, remains limited to travel that is mission critical, according to recently updated Safer Federal Workforce Task Force guidance. President Biden created the task force via Executive Order on January 20, 2021 and tasked it with providing ongoing guidance to federal agencies on the operation of government, the safety of its employees, and the continuity of government during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Amid rising domestic and global infection rates, on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued updated guidance on travel for people who have received the full dosage of a COVID-19 vaccine. The task force then issued a FAQ on how the CDC guidance applies to federal employee travel for official business.
The task force advises agencies to limit all official travel to mission critical trips and to avoid international travel “if at all possible, unless it is mission critical.” Exceptions for international travel include military deployments, COVID-19 response deployments and activities, diplomats traveling, and high-level international negotiations that cannot occur remotely. Agencies are permitted to further prohibit travel beyond the limitations prescribed in the task force FAQ.
In keeping with CDC guidance for the general public, fully vaccinated federal employees do not need to get tested before or after domestic travel or to self-quarantine after domestic travel, unless required by their travel destination. For those traveling internationally, fully vaccinated federal employees are required to have a negative coronavirus test result within three days (or documentation of COVID-19 recovery) before flying back to the United States.
The task force additionally encourages all travelers to continue following CDC COVID-19 prevention measures. Those measures include wearing a mask over the nose and mouth on all forms of public transportation, avoiding crowds, and frequent hand washing or sanitization.
