Dec. 23 (UPI) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday said it will hear cases challenging President Joe Biden‘s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for large employers and healthcare workers.
The high court said it will hold oral arguments for the two mandates on Jan. 7, as they agreed to take the cases unusually quickly.
Until the hearing, the court said lower court rulings allowing enforcement of the employer mandate issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and partial enforcement of the healthcare worker mandate will remain in place.
The announcement comes after U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar requested that the Supreme Court lift rulings by federal judges that have blocked the requirement for healthcare workers from going into effect in 24 states, citing the Omicron COVID-19 variants and the 800,000 U.S. deaths related to the virus since the start of the pandemic.
The healthcare mandate implemented a rule by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services directing all health facilities that receive federal funding to require their workers to get vaccinated.
The requirement would apply to 20 million nursing home, hospital and other health workers and would not allow workers to opt for regular testing instead of getting the vaccine.
OSHA’s regulation would require businesses with 100 or more employees to ensure that workers are fully vaccinated or subject unvaccinated employees to wear masks and provide a negative COVID-19 test at least once a week.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit lifted a lower stay blocking enforcement of the OSHA rule, calling it “an important step in curtailing the transmission” of COVID-19.
OSHA said it will not take any enforcement steps on the rule before Jan. 10 and won’t issue citations for workers who fail to comply with testing requirements before Feb. 9 as long as the employer is working to put the rules into effect.
