Court blocks Biden’s Covid rules for big companies
The Supreme Court has stopped a major push by the Biden administration to boost the United States’ Covid19 vaccination rate, a requirement that employees at large businesses get a vaccine or test regularly and wear a mask on the job.
At the same time, the court is allowing the administration to proceed with a vaccine mandate for most health care workers in the US. The court’s orders yesterday came during a spike in Covid cases caused by the highly transmissible Omicron variant.
The court’s conservative majority concluded the administration overstepped its authority by seeking to impose the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s vaccineor-test rule on US businesses with at least 100 employees.
OSHA had estimated the rule, affecting more than 80 million people, would save 6500 lives and prevent 250,000 hospitalisations over six months.
In dissent, the court’s three liberals argued that it was the court that was overreaching by substituting its judgment for that of health experts.
“Acting outside of its competence and without legal basis, the Court displaces the judgments of the Government officials given the responsibility to respond to workplace health emergencies,” Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a joint dissent.
President Joe Biden said he was “disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block commonsense life-saving requirements for employees at large businesses that were grounded squarely in both science and the law.”
He called on businesses to institute their own vaccination requirements, noting that a third of Fortune 100 companies already have done so.
Biden said yesterday that the Government will double to 1 billion the rapid, at-home Covid tests to be distributed free to Americans, with “highquality masks,” as he highlighted his efforts to “surge” resources to help the US weather the spike in cases.
He also said that starting next week 1000 military medical personnel will begin deploying nationwide to help overwhelmed medical facilities ease staff shortages due to Omicron. Many facilities are struggling because their workers are in at-home quarantines. Federal medical personnel had already been sent to some states to help with acute shortages. Biden acknowledged that, “I know we’re all frustrated as we enter this new year” as virus cases reach new heights. But he insisted that it remains “a pandemic of the unvaccinated”.
Both vaccinated and unvaccinated people test positive for the virus, but Biden noted medical figures showing that people are far less likely to suffer serious illness and death if they’ve received a shot: “What happens after that could not be more different.”
Biden’s comments come as his administration’s focus is shifting to easing disruptions from the spike in cases that is also contributing to grocery shortages and flight cancellations, rather than preventing the transmission of the virus.
This week Janet Woodcock, acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, addressed Congress.
“I think it’s hard to process what’s actually happening right now, which is: Most people are going to get Covid, all right?” she said. “What we need to do is make sure the hospitals can still function — transportation, other essential services are not disrupted while this happens.”
Biden said he is directing his team to double its procurement of rapid Covid-19 tests to be delivered for free to Americans through a forthcoming federal website, as he seeks to respond to criticism over shortages and long lines for tests. The initial order was for 500 million tests, and now the federal Government will purchase 1 billion at-home testing kits.
The initial batch of test kits will be available starting next week, Biden said, when the administration launches a new website where Americans can request the free tests. The rest of the tests will be delivered over the coming months.
Biden also announced that for the first time his administration was planning to make “high-quality masks”, including N95s, which are most effective at preventing transmission of the virus, available for free.
The federal Government has a stockpile of more than 750 million N95 masks, the White House said this week. And though research has shown those to be better protection, they are often more uncomfortable, and health officials are not altering their guidance to recommend against less-protective cloth masks.
The best mask “is the one that you will wear and the one you can keep on all day long, that you can tolerate in public indoor settings,” Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said.
Biden encouraged Americans to wear masks indoors to slow Omicron’s spread, even as he acknowledged they’re a “pain in the neck”.
During yesterday’s remarks Biden was joined by Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin, who recently recovered from his own case of Covid-19, and Fema administrator Deanne Criswell. They were hearing about the work of the more than 800 military personnel who have been helping civilian hospitals since Thanksgiving.