President Joe Biden's efforts to use the federal government to eradicate the corona plague came as a shock on Thursday when the Supreme Court overturned a ruling it issued requiring private sector workers to be vaccinated if they are in large offices (companies of over 100 people) or checked frequently.
All six Conservative justices of the Supreme Court have ruled that the federal government has no authority to force workers to get vaccinated, not even in emergencies like an epidemic.
They noted that the provision deviates from the legal area entrusted to the relevant Occupational Health Agency (OSHA), which believes in regulation of work and health in the workplace.
In doing so, the Supreme Court effectively exempted 80 million Americans in the private sector from the obligation to be vaccinated or frequently screened, and experts estimate that if the order had been fully implemented at least 6,500 people would have survived and 250,000 hospitalizations would have been avoided.
"The OSHA body has never imposed such an obligation, nor has Congress," the judges noted in their decision.
"Although Congress has enacted significant laws regarding the epidemic, it has not enacted any legislation similar to the OSHA directive," they went on to say, in effect telling the administration that the only way it can issue such a directive is to get a green light from the legislature. This extensive right of enforcement.
The three liberal judges, on the other hand, argued in the minority opinion that the Supreme Court should not interfere with the professional judgment of the administration in this area.
Biden said in response to the decision that he was "disappointed that the Supreme Court decided to prevent the application of common sense by requirements that would have saved the lives of employees in big business, as these are decisions that are well grounded in both law and science."
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