A federal appeals court overseeing the consolidation of dozens of legal challenges to the Biden administration’s COVID-19 testing and vaccine mandates for businesses ruled on Friday evening that the White House’s effort can move forward.
Demonstrating that common sense and a healthy regard for public safety are still alive and well in some corners of the country, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, based in Ohio, ruled that the mandates represent “an important step in curtailing the transmission of a deadly virus that has killed over 800,000 people in the United States, brought our healthcare system to its knees, forced businesses to shut down for months on end, and cost hundreds of thousands of workers their jobs.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has been wrenching, in other words, and why move backward by blocking practical tools that can stem its proliferation? “The costs of delaying implementation” of mandates “are comparatively high” the court added. “The harm to the Government and the public interest outweighs any irreparable injury to the individual Petitioners who may be subject to a vaccination policy.”
Hear, hear.
Businesses and individuals opposed to federal mandates have framed their stance as a principled, don’t-tread-on-me battle for personal freedom against a heavy-handed government. They have also argued that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration overstepped its regulatory authority by issuing an emergency order requiring companies with 100 or more employees to enforce the federal mandates. Nonsense, the Sixth Circuit said. The common good transcends the need for any person or company to fly solo during a national emergency.
This won’t end the disagreement, of course. Opponents appealed the Sixth Circuit’s ruling, and the dispute will now find its way to the Supreme Court. The nation’s highest court has thus far ruled in favor of state and local mandates, but it’s uncertain how a conservative court predisposed to decentralizing public power will view federal mandates.
Meanwhile, people continue to get sick, overwhelm hospitals and sometimes die. The omicron variant has started to rip through offices and homes, reminding anti-vaxxers and libertarians that Mother Nature will have her way whether they like it or not. Perhaps omicron will also lift the scales from the eyes of judges on the Fifth Circuit, the federal appeals court in Louisiana.
That court stayed Biden’s mandates, but the Sixth Circuit, selected by lottery to hear the consolidated challenges to mandates, overruled the Fifth Circuit. Now it will be up to the Supreme Court to settle the matter. Meanwhile, the deadline for imposing the federal mandates has slipped from Jan. 4 to Feb. 9.
Thus, vaccine hesitancy and refusal have been reinforced over time.
The perils of that messaging were evident at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week. Sen. Ted Cruz excoriated Scott Kirby, the chief executive officer of United Airlines Holdings Inc., during the hearing for successfully instituting a mandate at his company. Kirby, who has repeatedly said that his first duty is to keep his employees and customers safe, has been uncompromising in his approach. About 99.7% of United’s 67,000-member workforce is now vaccinated.
Cruz went on to praise Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest Airlines Co., and Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines Group Inc., for having a lighter touch than Kirby.
Kelly, who was coughing and unmasked during the Senate hearing, disclosed on Friday that he had tested positive for COVID-19. Kelly may be Cruz’s kind of guy, but omicron has landed, and the clock is ticking. Undermining mandates won’t do anyone any good.
Bloomberg