President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday asked a federal court to allow it to go ahead with an order that will require employees of companies with 100 or more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or take weekly tests.
The mandate is a centerpiece of the federal government’s efforts to contain the spread of the disease as infections and hospitalizations rise shortly before the winter season begins.
Republican state attorneys general, conservative organizations and some companies argue that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration – known by the acronym OSHA, a branch of the United States Department of Labor – lacks the authority to require vaccines and managed to persuade a federal court to suspend the order.
Lawyers for OSHA and the Department of Justice told the Federal Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that the mandate was necessary to reduce the transmission of the virus in the workplace “and the serious damage that the virus inflicts on workers.”
They argued that the order will prevent the death of 6,500 workers and the hospitalization of 250,000 in six months. The pandemic has already killed more than 750,000 people in the United States, and infections have increased rapidly in recent weeks.
If maintained, the OSHA rule would take effect on January 4 and apply to private companies with 100 or more employees, affecting approximately 84 million workers in the country, who would have to be vaccinated against COVID- 19 or have weekly tests, and wear a mask in the workplace. There are exceptions for employees who work from home, alone, or outdoors.
The legal dispute over such an order is one of several vaccine enforcement challenges facing the Biden administration. So far, the courts have failed to stop two more mandates: one for healthcare workers and one for federal government contractors.
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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, NJ.
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