The U.S. Supreme Court building is seen at sunset in Washington on Thursday, Dec. 2, 2021.
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
- The Supreme Court blocked a Biden administration vaccine-or-testing mandate for private businesses with over 100 employees.
- The court allowed a separate Biden administration vaccine mandate for healthcare workers at federally funded facilities to take effect.
- Biden announced the two mandates last fall.
The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a Biden administration COVID-19 vaccine-or-testing mandate for private companies with over 100 employees, delivering a win to Republican challengers who claimed the requirement was an overreach of the federal government’s power.
Yet the nation’s highest court allowed another Biden administration vaccine requirement for healthcare workers at federally funded facilities to take effect across the country.
The decision for the workplace rule was 6-3, with the court’s liberals, Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, and Elena Kagan, in dissent. The court’s conservative majority wrote in an unsigned opinion that the Biden administration likely did not have the authority to impose the policy.
The vote for the healthcare workers mandate was 5-4, with two of the court’s conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh, joining the liberals.
The pair of decisions came less than a week after the Supreme Court heard lengthy arguments on both of the vaccine mandates announced by the Biden administration last fall.
President Joe Biden rolled out the two rules that covered nearly 100 million workers nationwide in a bid to increase the US’ COVID-19 vaccination rate and keep workplaces open.
But a slew of Republican officials and business groups swiftly brought forth legal challenges, arguing that the requirements represent government overreach and could instead negatively harm businesses and staffing levels.
The Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the mandate to private businesses with over 100 employees in November, requiring workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo weekly testing. The rule applied to roughly 84 million workers and allowed religious exemptions.
The administration estimated that the policy would have prevented nearly 250,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations and saved over 6,500 lives over the next six months.
A lower court initially blocked the mandate, but then another court reversed its ruling. Parts of the mandate took effect on Monday while the Supreme Court case was pending.
The other mandate, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, required vaccinations for healthcare workers at facilities that receive federal funding, while also allowing religious exemptions.
The Supreme Court’s Thursday decisions throw out a major chunk of the Biden administration’s coronavirus pandemic response, but leaves some of it intact by allowing enforcement of the healthcare workers mandate.
The rulings come as the US experiences a surge in coronavirus infections driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant. The current 7-day daily average of hospitalizations is 16,458, a 60% increase from the prior week, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Read the original article on Business Insider 
