Supreme Court agrees to take up disputes over the Biden administration’s vaccine mandates

Jen Psaki says Justice Department will ‘vigorously defend’ the legality of the mandates

File: Joe Biden talks about the newly approved Covid vaccine for children ages 5-11 from the South Court Auditorium on the White House complex in Washington on 3 November 2021 (Associated Press)

The US Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday to take up the disputes over president Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate and set 7 January as the date for a special hearing in two cases.

One of the cases involve the Biden administration’s mandate asking large businesses to either ask employees to be fully vaccinated or test for Covid-19 weekly, while the other is for a separate vaccine requirement for healthcare workers.

Rulings for both the cases are likely to follow.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement that the Justice Department “will vigorously defend both — the legality of both the mandates — at the Supreme Court.”

“Especially as the US faces the highly transmissible Omicron variant, it is critical to protect workers with vaccination requirements and testing protocols that are urgently needed. We are confident in the legal authority for both policies,” the statement added.

Joe Biden’s workplace mandate for large businesses is currently in effect nationwide while the healthcare worker vaccine mandate is blocked in half of the 50 states across the country, Reuters reported.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, raising concerns over whether the Biden administration’s mandate would be upheld.

The decision to take up disputes on vaccine mandates comes in the wake of the highly infectious Omicron variant that has already been discovered across the country.

Experts pointed out that the country needs to brace for a “tidal wave” of cases.

Several groups had challenged a decision by an appeals courts on Friday to allow the vaccine mandates that cover 80 million American workers.

The second case inquired on whether the administration can mandate healthcare workers to be vaccinated against Covid at hospitals that receive federal money.

“Requiring health care workers at facilities participating in Medicare and Medicaid to be vaccinated protects the health and safety of patients at those facilities by reducing their risk of contracting the virus that causes Covid-19,” solicitor general Elizabeth B Prelogar told the court.

Challengers of the vaccine mandate in the first case include the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade group that represents small businesses, various individual businesses and two religious entities, including the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky.

Additional reporting from wires