Fact-checking false claims about FEMA workers, vaccine mandates and fired health employees

Hundreds of health care workers across the country are being dismissed or suspended from their jobs for not complying with the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Some praise the requirement, some rebuke it, and others are using the mandates to spread misinformation. 

Widespread social media posts claimed, without evidence, that federal relief workers are being brought in to replace fired health staff, and, ironically, they don’t have to get vaccinated themselves.

"READ THIS. THEN READ IT AGAIN. THEN READ IT AGAIN," an Oct. 18 Instagram post said. "BREAKING: The FEMA healthcare workers replacing the noncompliant nurses and doctors are NOT required to get vaccinated via the CDC." 

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

This is inaccurate. FEMA and its employees fall under President Joe Biden’s Sept. 9 executive order that mandated COVID-19 vaccines for all federal employees. The same order requires vaccination among the roughly 17 million workers at health care facilities that receive federal Medicare or Medicaid, and vaccination or weekly testing for companies with over 100 employees.

FEMA published a report about the changes on its website, stating that they will "require EMS agencies that participate in federal health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid to mandate vaccination for all staff, with limited exceptions."

Jaclyn Rothenberg, director of public affairs at FEMA, confirmed that the agency’s employees are not replacing recently dismissed unvaccinated doctors and nurses in the first place, and called claims stating otherwise "unequivocally false."  

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on November 24, 2024 in a Threads post

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said “if every member of Congress had to resign for doing what Matt Gaetz has been accused of, Democrats would have a supermajority.’"

"We work closely with each state to identify resource requirements to fight COVID-19 based on their needs," Rothenberg wrote in an email. 

She said that FEMA, in partnership with the departments of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, and Defense, has deployed medical staff at the request of states to alleviate some of the pandemic-induced stress on health care systems.

"These deployed medical staff abide by the vaccination and other preventive measures requirements established by the receiving facility," Rothenberg added.

We rate this post False.