According to a Federal Register notice published Tuesday, the Biden administration has formally rescinded the Department of Labor's November 5 order that firms with more than 100 employees need COVID-19 immunization.
The Supreme Court ruled on January 13 with a 6-3 vote that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) of the Department of Labor did not have the power to implement the Biden administration's directive.
Biden administration officially withdraws COVID-19 vaccine mandate for businesses
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals had been evaluating the Biden mandate's legality; nevertheless, the Supreme Court's decision almost certainly confirmed that even if the lower court found the legislation to be constitutional, the judgment would have been reversed by the Supreme Court.
In the last two weeks, the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States has decreased by 9%. However, the number of deaths has increased by 25%, while the number of hospitalizations has increased by 13%, according to Newsweek.
A vaccination requirement for healthcare employees at federally funded facilities was allowed to go into effect by the country's top court. Biden said in September that he was making vaccines mandatory at major private enterprises after months of public calls to be vaccinated against COVID-19, which has killed over 869,000 people in the United States.
Employees who have not been vaccinated would be required to submit to weekly negative testing and wear face masks while at work. The requirement was barred by the Supreme Court's six conservative justices, who said it would be a significant invasion into the lives and health of a large number of employees.
The verdict stymies the federal government's capacity to resist the unprecedented harm that COVID-19 offers to our nation's workers, the three liberal justices said in dissent, as per The Straits Times.
More than 850,000 people have died as a result of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, and the country's economy continues to suffer as a result of the outbreak.
According to US official statistics, Biden's several policies in September targeted at raising the adult immunization rate in the United States, which now stands at around 74%.
For what it's worth, despite the withdrawal of the mandate, the OHSA released a statement encouraging workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine in order to combat the dangers of the virus in the workplace. It is particularly important amid the rising cases of the Omicron variant.
President Biden's shocking COVID-19 regulations
One of the most alarming rule from the Biden administration was directing the Department of Labor to issue an order through OSHA requiring private enterprises to keep track of their employees' vaccination status or risk government fines and penalties. After repeatedly claiming that the government would not impose vaccine mandates on private firms, many people were puzzled when Biden unveiled the plan.
Conservative groups, Republicans, and a number of business groups filed legal objections to the planned vaccination requirements, alleging that enforcing such a law would be too difficult.
The reversal was hailed as a "huge success" by the Republican National Committee, which described the planned regulation as totalitarian. The Supreme Court earlier this month halted the OSHA rule for enterprises with at least 100 employees, but it also permitted a separate federal vaccine requirement for healthcare workers to be implemented.
The Biden administration's third major vaccination mandate compelled federal government contractors to have their personnel immunized. In December, a federal court in the United States stopped that, and a vaccination mandate for government employees was also blocked last week.
Mandates imposed by enterprises, states, and local governments have been sustained despite the fact that courts have consistently concluded the administration lacked the jurisdiction to enforce immunization.
Many firms had already adopted vaccine or testing measures to go ahead of the mandate, which was supposed to go into effect earlier this month until it was ruled down by the court before the regulation was withdrawn. More than 80 million people in the United States would have been affected.
According to the law, enterprises with 100 or more employees would have needed to show documentation that their staff had been completely vaccinated, which meant they had had their second or first vaccine two weeks prior to their second or first shot, depending on which vaccine they received, Mail Online reported.
Related Article: Supreme Court Halts Joe Biden's COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate for Businesses; Republicans, Donald Trump Applaud Decision
