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A US FEDERAL appeals court has temporarily halted the Biden administration’s vaccine requirement for businesses.
The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals granted an emergency stay of the requirement that workers be vaccinated by January 4 or face mask requirements and weekly tests.
Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said the action stops Joe Biden “from moving forward with his unlawful overreach”.
“The president will not impose medical procedures on the American people without the checks and balances afforded by the constitution,” said a statement from Landry, a Republican.
The law would have imposed the vaccine mandate on those working for private companies with more than 100 employees.
Seema Nanda, the US Labour Department’s top legal adviser, said the department is “confident in its legal authority to issue the emergency temporary standard on vaccination and testing”.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has the authority “to act quickly in an emergency where the agency finds that workers are subjected to a grave danger and a new standard is necessary to protect them,” she said.
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A spokesman for the Justice Department, Anthony Coley, said in a statement: “The OSHA emergency temporary standard is a critical tool to keep America’s workplaces safe as we fight our way out of this pandemic. The Justice Department will vigorously defend this rule in court.
Such circuit decisions normally apply to states within a district – Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, in this case – but Landry said the language employed by the judges gave the decision a national scope.
“This is a great victory for the American people out there. Never before has the federal government tried in a such a forceful way to get between the choices of an American citizen and their doctor. To me that’s the heart of the entire issue,” he said.
At least 27 states filed lawsuits challenging the rule in several circuits, some of which were made more conservative by the judicial appointments of former US President Donald Trump.
The Biden administration has been encouraging widespread vaccinations as the quickest way to end the pandemic that has claimed more than 750,000 lives in the United States.
The administration says it is confident that the requirement, which includes penalties of nearly €12,000 per violation, will withstand legal challenges in part because its safety rules pre-empt state laws.
The 5th Circuit, based in New Orleans, said it was delaying the federal vaccine requirement because of potential “grave statutory and constitutional issues” raised by the plaintiffs.
The government must provide an expedited reply to the motion for a permanent injunction tomorrow, followed by petitioners’ reply on Tuesday.
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@Raymond Barry: no this is nothing to do with health it’s simply the petty US politics from the Republicans to say no to everything and oppose everything.
@Hugo Bugo: THEY ARE GIVEN A CHOICE . Does shouting make it clearer. Get a vaccine OR wear a mask and take regular testing. Is it really that difficult to understand or are you so consumed with fighting you have brain fog.
@Raymond Barry: they are two cheeks of the same ar$e, and as long as the american electorate keeps supporting politics like they do their footy team neither has any incentive to improve. The democrats would be a centre right party in any other country in the world, and biden is basically a republican in a blue tie.
@Stephen McMahon: Here’s a hint: when it comes to abortion, which is presumably what you’re on about, there’s a choice being taken away in either case. I support the option that means not killing someone out of convenience.
The president is only trying to save lives and his economy. He should be applauded and we should follow suit here. Every life saved is worth more than the feelings of some anti-vaxers.
@Victoria Victoria: this is freedom colliding with personal responsibility. I know which option is the right one for keeping everyone safe and well, and I also accept that it’s not all about me, and I may be mildly inconvenienced during these difficult times. Those anti vaxxers are selfish. Simple as.
@Victoria Victoria: the mandate is get vaccinated or take alternative measures like wear a mask and take regular testing to go to work. That is not taking away any freedom it is giving people a choice of two responsible actions. If you refuse both you are irresponsible and selfish simple as.
@Tracktrack: Save the economy? By… Spending more? By adding to the (already ample) national debt? By handing half a million to people illegally entering the country? By forcing people out of work? By raising the minimum wage thus, again, pushing people out of work as companies seek to save money through automation? Need I go on? What part of what Biden is doing is saving the economy? He doesn’t even have his own party’s consensus on his economic policy!
@Chris Gaffney: why ?
If your vaccine doesn’t protect you then it clearly doesn’t work , so why should others be forced to take it ?? People have lost all ability to use logic when it comes to this covid nonsense
@Chris Gaffney: you brainwashed guys just can’t help yourselves. there you go with the fear and scaremongering again. The % of people in ICU yesterday was 0.0015 of the population
We have had multiple times that in hospital and in ICU previously with flu and the world kept turning
@Martin Greene: Also if any of them bothered to look up the latest figures, they’d see that 78% of recent admissions to ICU were fully jabbed. Cue another narrative shift of “well that’s to be expected with 90% of the population fully jabbed”.
@Diarmuid Hunt: Oh right. So if you’re in ICU & unjabbed, you’re an anti-vaxx numbskull clogging up the health system. But if you’re jabbed, it’s maths. Got it.
@Dave: I never said the former. The point is that as more people are vaccinated it is more likely for anybody admitted to ICU is going to be vaccinated. Seems like you’ve got nothing other than hysteria.
@Diarmuid Hunt: Not you Diarmuid, but look at the comments blaming the anti-vaxxers on the article about the frontline workers. And almost every article over the past few months. Your side are the hysterical ones, even when the stats prove them wrong.
@Dave Thomas: Both of which have been verified as being said in jest. Got anything else? I’m not a fan of the guy at all, but he was right about fake news and misinformation.
@Stephen McMahon: I know it happened. You asked if it was less embarrassing and I said it wasn’t even close. You wanna go with the fk’n mořon route of calling me a Trump fan then I’ll refer you to the comment right above my previous one where I specifically said I wasn’t a fan of his.
When my kids were little and stamped their feet because they wanted ice-cream for dinner I simplified it by giving them a choice of the two health options that were available to them because they weren’t mature enough to understand what’s good for them. It’s quite worrying that there are so many that have the same lack of maturity as a toddler.
The people who complained bitterly when courts stopped Trumps travel bans because courts shouldn’t do that now celebrating a court stopping a president. Such blatent hip oc racy
@Stephen McMahon: One order prevents people coming into the country as a preventative measure and affects few, if any Americans; the other affects the lives and livelihoods of all Americans. You can’t see the difference?
@Nollaig Ó Ceallaigh: Yeah I get it. Trump, you’d orange god can do no wrong in your let’s be generous and call it a mind. Anyone not a Trump fanboy saw clearly just how deluded and dangerous he was and still is.
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