Nearly a million people have died in this Pandemic. Justice Elena Kagan said that it is the greatest public health danger that the country has faced in the last century. More and more people are dying every day, and incentivizing them to get their vaccinations is the best way to do that.
Justice Clarence Thomas questioned if the current danger from Covid amounted to the kind of crisis that justified the Occupational Safety and Health Administration using an expedited process issuing an "emergency temporary standard" requiring most workplaces with more than 100 workers to enforce a vaccine-or-mask-and-test mandate.
The vaccine has been around for a while. " Covid has been around for even longer," Thomas said. The government could have made a comment.
The Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, was nominated by the President and said he was open to allowing the OSHA rule to take effect. Roberts was more skeptical about the power of the Biden administration to act without specific legislation. The creation of OSHA in 1970 was not thought to have contemplated broad vaccine mandates.
Roberts said that Congress acted 50 years ago. I don't think it had Covid in mind. That was close to the Spanish flu.
The need for action is critical according to the statute authorizing OSHA.
Prelogar said that there are lives being lost every day.
By the end of the three-and-a-half-hour session, the high court's Republican-appointed majority seemed likely to block the large-workplaces rule, but inclined to side with the Biden administration at least for now on its claim of power to impose vaccine requirements The health-care-worker rule was issued as a condition of federal funding for Medicare and Medicaid, according to both liberal and conservative justices.
The power to require vaccinations for workers providing those services seemed to be part of the power to impose other infection control measures.
The only thing you can do is kill your patients. That seems like a basic measure for preventing infections.
The death toll in nursing homes was large.
The Massachusetts native said that they know what happened in the old people's homes.
Roberts said that Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra appeared to be entitled to some deference in what his department imposes.
I'm not saying there isn't a limit. The chief justice said that he didn't know why a provision addressing an infectious disease of this scope is beyond the secretary's determinaiton.
Lawyers for the states opposed to the health care mandate said it will cause chaos at small hospitals and clinics because unvaccinated employees will quit.
Jesus Osete, deputy solicitor general of Missouri, said that rural America would face an imminent crisis without the injunction. Many of the rural facilities will be closing because of this mandate.
Osete said that the impact was not taken into account by the Biden administration. He said that what may work in Detroit and Houston may not work in Memphis, Missouri or El Dorado, Ark.
The health care mandate was more about the Biden administration grabbing every tool it could to boost vaccination levels in the general public than it was about protecting patients in nursing homes and hospitals, according to the Louisiana Solicitor General.
She said it was a bureaucratic power move that was unprecedented. This is for people. It is not targeted at facilities.
The health care worker rule was the subject of a challenge by the conservative justices.
Most hospitals and nursing homes have not fought the states, as suggested by Justice Kavanaugh. He said that the people who are regulated are not complaining.
The states pointed out that they directly provide some services that are covered by the rules.
Justice Amy ConeyBarrett, who was appointed by Trump, said that the administration's claims of power to regulate entities like hospitals and nursing homes might be stronger than those of other providers.
The omnipresence of the epidemic was clear from the fact that both Murrill and Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers argued by phone.
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The audio feed the court provided for the public to listen in to the arguments was inaudible. The other justices and the lawyers were able to hear her, and her audio came back.
He was absent from the courtroom after testing positive for coronaviruses.
His symptoms were very mild and he has fully recovered. He is arguing remotely because the court required a test to detect the virus, according to a spokeswoman for the Ohio attorney general's office.
The justices were told by Flowers that he is triple-vaccinated and that the vaccine does not seem to be very effective at stopping the spread or transmission of the new variant. He said that the OSHA rule doesn't really address a work-related problem because of the ease of contracting the virus.
It's not intended to regulate workplace dangers. It's a danger we all face because we wake up in the morning.
She said she disagreed.
"Do you know of any workplace that has not changed in the last two years?" she asked.
Workers have less control over their contact at work than in other places. She said that you have to be there with a bunch of people that you don't know are irresponsible.
The mandates, which cover tens of millions of workers, are central to President Joe Biden's effort to combat the spread of the virus. The justices will only rule on whether the administration can enforce the rules, or if they have to return the decision to the courts.
The vaccine mandates could be in the balance as the administration waits for a final decision.
Jim Paretti, who represents employers for law firm Littler and is not involved in the cases, said that it will leave people with at least a little more clarity as to what the next few weeks might bring. I don't think we will have final answers.
Employers with 100 or more employees are required by the Department of Labor's OSHA division to ensure that their workers are tested weekly and wear masks at work. The Department of Health and Human Services requires employees of health care facilities that receive federal funding to get the jab.
The requirements, which would affect tens of millions of workers, have been in legal limbo since the Biden administration issued them last year.
The Labor Department mandate was initially blocked by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, but the 6th Circuit appeals court lifted the stay after it was chosen via lottery to hear a consolidated version of the various legal challenges to the mandate.
In the health care workers' case, the Justice Department is asking the Supreme Court to stop two injunctions on the mandate that were issued by federal district courts in Louisiana and Missouri.
The agency did not have the legal authority to impose the regulations, according to those challenging them. The vaccine-or-test mandate is not the same as the emergency temporary standards because of a 1980 Supreme Court decision, according to the challengers.
The Mandate imposes vaccine-or-testing requirements for 84 million Americans, and imposes these requirements on every single industry in the country, amounting to over 264,000 businesses, according to the Job Creators Network.
If the mandate is blocked, lives are at stake, according to the administration.
Exposure to the potentially deadly virus in the workplace presents a grave danger to unvaccinated employees who are at greatest risk of contracting and spreading the virus at work and suffering, andOSHA properly determined that [Covid-19] is both a physically harmful agent and a new hazard
People hold up signs during a protest in front of the Massachusetts State House.
The vaccine mandate for health care workers was put on hold last month after lower courts in two dozen mostly Republican-led states froze it. Medicare and Medicaid patients in covered facilities are among the most vulnerable to coronaviruses and deserve protection from their health care providers, according to the administration.
The requirement was announced by Biden as part of a dramatic expansion of the administration's bid to boost vaccination rates. More than 17 million workers and 50,000 health facilities will be affected by the mandate.
The 8th Circuit turned down the Biden administration's request that a temporary freeze on the mandate in 10 states be lifted last week.
It can now be enforced in about half of the states, which include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and
There are lawsuits pending in other courts over the Biden administration's Covid-19 vaccine mandates for uniformed military personnel, federal workers and federal contractors. The vaccine issue for the armed forces was not the focus of arguments Friday, but Roberts said he considers it to be very different.
The military is on its own. He said that they take orders.
Adriel Bettelheim contributed to the report.
