First modification:
The highest court in the United States blocked this Thursday, January 13, one of the measures required by President Joe Biden to stop the spread of Covid-19 in large companies. Employees of companies with a hundred workers or more will not have to be vaccinated or undergo regular tests in order to access their jobs, as was planned as of February.
The Supreme Court of the United States dealt a heavy blow this Thursday, January 13, to one of the measures proposed by President Joe Biden to fight the coronavirus.
The Supreme Court annulled Biden’s mandate that required employees of all companies with one hundred or more employees in the United States to be vaccinated or to present weekly negative test results for Covid-19 and that should take effect from the month of February .
For conservative justices on the Court, this was an inappropriate restriction on the lives of many Americans. However, what they did agree on was to validate a separate measure that establishes the mandatory vaccine for the personnel of the country’s health centers that receive federal subsidies from the Medicare or Medicaid programs, and in which some 17 million work. of people.
With 6 votes from the conservative judges against 3 from the liberals, the Supreme Court blocked the health measure that would have affected more than 80 million employees throughout the national territory.
Regarding compulsory vaccination for health personnel, the judges validated the measure with 5 votes in favor and 4 against. Conservative Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh backed the decision.
I am directing my team to procure 500 million more COVID-19 at-home, rapid tests.
That will mean one billion tests to be distributed for free.
— President Biden (@POTUS) January 13, 2022
With or without a mandate, many companies will continue to require mandatory vaccination
After the Supreme Court ruling, President Biden expressed his disappointment and assured that now it is up to the states of the country and the companies to decide if they want their workers to “take the simple and effective step of getting vaccinated” against Covid-19.
The Court downplayed the risks posed specifically by the coronavirus in the workplace and compared the epidemic risk to “everyday” crime and environmental hazards. Additionally, the conservative majority concluded that the Biden Administration overstepped its authority by trying to impose weekly negative testing or vaccinations on businesses.
However, at a press conference from the White House, government spokeswoman Jen Psaki referred to the ruling, saying that the majority of employers in a couple of surveys she referred to support vaccination requirements for their employees and will continue to require that their workers get vaccinated, federally mandated or not.
The Covid-19 pandemic has so far left a total of 63,994,421 cases of infection in the United States and is responsible for 846,319 deaths. The North American nation is the most affected by the health crisis in the world.
With AP and Reuters
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