Big! A judge has suspended Chicago’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement for police officers

The ruling Monday is a major victory for the police unions which sued the city over vaccine requirements.

A Cook County judge on Monday suspended the city of Chicago’s policy requiring that all of its police officers be vaccinated against COVID-19 by the end of the year.

The ruling is a major victory for police unions, who have held that the city’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate violates their collective bargaining agreements. Judge Raymond Mitchell ruled Monday that the mandate should be halted for police officers until those complaints can be settled in arbitration.

Mitchell’s ruling does not impact other city workers, or other parts of the policy. That means city employees who are not represented by any of the four police unions will still have to be vaccinated by Dec. 31, 2021. And all police officers are still required to report their vaccination status and get tested twice a week if they’re not vaccinated.

As of Oct. 25, about 57% of the city’s police force had reported being vaccinated against COVID-19, according to city data. However, 30 percent had still not reported their vaccination status at all.