For now, at least, there will be no vaccine mandate for employees at Lexington Medical Center.

The hospital confirmed to the Chronicle on Dec. 1 that it would no longer require employees to receive at least a first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Dec. 5.

The change comes after a preliminary injunction issued by Louisiana U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty blocked the Biden administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from enforcing a mandate that workers at all facilities who accept Medicare and Medicaid patients be vaccinated starting Dec. 6. The injunction applies to 14 states, including South Carolina, and follows a Monday ruling by another federal judge that blocked enforcement of the mandate in 10 other states.

“Since a U.S. District judge has issued a preliminary injunction against the CMS mandate, Lexington Medical Center is pausing its requirement that current employees be vaccinated by December 5, 2021,” the hospital said in a statement. “We will wait for the case to make its way through the courts to determine next steps.”

Republican State Rep. Ryan Mc-Cabe told the Chronicle he’s “ecstatic” that the hospital put a pause on its overarching COVID-19 vaccination requirement. But while that policy was at the center of a Nov. 20 protest led by McCabe and a letter he sent to the hospital, there are still changes he’d like to see made.

“It was never my position that they should violate the mandate,” the state representative said. “What I asked them to do is ameliorate in a way that protected employees to the extent they could. Most of these health care workers were, you know, hailed as heroes six months ago, and now they’re being threatened with losing their jobs. I just felt that that was an unjust thing to do.”

He specifically took issue with three Lexington Medical policies. Two of them, a requirement for managers and above to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and including a section requesting contact info for the employee’s religious organization on the form for workers seeking a religious exemption, are still in place.

The third policy was one that Mc-Cabe said would have prevented unvaccinated employees from dining with vaccinated ones.

Lexington Medical told the Chronicle it had been set to implement procedures for limiting vaccinated employees’ exposure to unvaccinated ones, but that policy is also on hold until a final determination is made about the future of the Medicare/Medicaid mandate.

“Lexington Medical Center had been preparing to comply with the CMS mandate by December 6, 2021,” the hospital said in a statement. “Part of that compliance would have been making reasonable accommodations to minimize the impact of employees who had received an exemption and remained unvaccinated. Limiting their unmasked time around others while dining is considered a reasonable accommodation as is weekly COVID-19 testing.

“Since we have paused our COVID-19 vaccine requirement as the CMS mandate makes its way through court, accommodations for unvaccinated employees are also on hold. All Lexington Medical Center employees are still expected to be masked at work and to stay at appropriate distances when eating or drinking.”

The requirement for managers and above to be vaccinated has been in place for some time now.

“This policy was put in place this summer to ensure leaders were vaccinated and could encourage their staff to be vaccinated,” the hospital said, noting that religious and medical exemptions were considered with this requirement. “Lexington Medical Center strongly believes the vaccine is safe and effective, and is the best tool we have to combat the virus.”

The hospital confirmed that contact info for the employee’s religious organization is requested on the form for those seeking a religious exemption, but it did not elaborate on why it is asking for this information.

McCabe said he believes asking for this information “really chilled employees from applying” for the exemptions.

“I wanted LMC, on behalf of its employees, to help them as much as possible and to take every step that they could to mitigate the implementation,” the state representative said. “Kind of like when you have kids, you know, the rule may be you have to do your homework. Mama might enforce that rule different than daddy, right? They were taking a very aggressive implementation.”