The Supreme Court of the United States stopped on Thursday the 13th an initiative of the government of President Joe Biden to boost the vaccination rate against COVID-19, which required that employees of large companies be vaccinated against the coronavirus or undergo diagnostic tests regularly and wear a mask at work sites.
At the same time, the court authorized the government to proceed with the vaccination mandate for most of the country’s health workers, which registers an increase in coronavirus cases driven by the omicron variant.
The conservative majority of the highest court found that the federal government exceeded its authority by trying to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule of vaccinating or getting diagnostic tests on companies with at least 100 employees. More than 80 million people have been affected. OSHA had estimated that the standard would save 6,500 lives and prevent 250,000 hospitalizations in six months.
“OSHA has never imposed a mandate like this before. Neither does Congress. In fact, while Congress has enacted significant law addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, it has refused to enact any measures similar to what OSHA has enacted here, ”the conservative justices wrote in an unsigned opinion.
On the contrary, the three liberal judges argued that it was the highest court that was overreaching by substituting the judgments of the health experts with its own.
“By acting outside its jurisdiction and without legal grounds, the Court displaces the judgments of government officials who were given responsibility for responding to health emergencies in the workplace,” wrote Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor in their joint dissent.
Biden said he was “disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common sense and life-saving requirements for employees of large companies that were based directly on science and the law.”
The president asked companies to implement their own vaccination requirements, noting that a third of the 100 largest companies in the United States have already done so.
The vaccination order that the court will allow to be applied throughout the country was approved by 5 votes in favor and 4 against, with the votes of Presiding Justice John Roberts and Judge Brett Kavanaugh joined with those of the Liberals to form a majority. It encompasses virtually every health worker in the nation.
Biden said that Supreme Court decision “will save lives.”
More than 208 million Americans, 62.7 percent of the population, have completed their vaccination schedule, and more than a third of them have received booster shots, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. . All nine Supreme Court justices have already received the booster dose.