The Covid vaccination-or-testing mandate for major employers, which was ruled down by the Supreme Court, was formally withdrawn by President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday.
Despite the withdrawal of the mandate, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) stated that it “highly promotes worker vaccination against the continuing threats posed by Covid-19 in the workplace.”
This month, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court struck down Biden’s vaccination-or-testing mandate for enterprises with 100 or more employees.
The nation’s highest court did allow a vaccination requirement for health-care workers at federally funded facilities to go into effect.
Following months of public pleas for Americans to get vaccinated against Covid, which has claimed the lives of over 869,000 individuals in the United States, Biden stated in September that immunizations would be made mandatory for major private enterprises.
Employees who have not been vaccinated would be required to submit weekly negative tests and wear face masks while at work.
The requirement was barred by the Supreme Court’s six conservative justices, who said it would be a ‘significant intrusion into the lives — and health — of a vast number of employees.’
‘Although Congress has unmistakably given OSHA the authority to regulate workplace hazards, it has not given the agency the authority to regulate public health in a broader sense,’ they said.
The ruling ‘stymies the federal government’s ability to counter the unparalleled threat that Covid19 poses to our nation’s workers,’ according to the three liberal justices who dissented.
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