Court Denies Biden Administration Attempt to Impose COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate on Navy SEALs

A Navy member receives a COVID-19 vaccine at the McCormick Gym onboard Naval Station Norfolk in Norfolk, Va., on April 8, 2021. Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Jackson Adkins/U.S. Navy

A federal appeals court on Feb. 28 rejected an attempt by President Joe Biden’s administration to partially lift a block on the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for a group of Navy SEALs.

A federal judge in January blocked the mandate’s enforcement for 35 Navy members, many of them SEALs, ruling that while the Navy had provided a process for adjudicating religious exemption applications, “by all accounts, it is theater.”