In an unannounced executive order, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey banned public employers from requiring a COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment.
The order, signed Wednesday (Dec. 15), primarily reactivates the state’s “enhanced surveillance advisory,” which requires most hospitals to provide consistent updates on ventilators, ICU beds, inpatient beds, ED beds, number of patients pending transfer out of hospitalization, as well as more detailed COVID-19 patient data.
However, one line stands out:
“No person shall be required by this state, or any city, town or county, to obtain a COVID-19 vaccine but a health care institution licensed pursuant to A.R.S. Title 36, Chapter 4 may require the institution’s employees to be vaccinated,” the order reads.
Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Biden’s Nationwide COVID-19 Vaccine and Testing Mandate for Private Businesses
A federal appeals court has just reinstated the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine and testing requirement for private businesses that covers about 80 million American workers.
The ruling by the 6th U.S. Court of Appeals in Cincinnati lifted a November injunction that had blocked the rule from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which applies to businesses with at least 100 workers.
In the decision Friday (Dec. 17), the 6th Circuit noted that OSHA has historical precedent for using wide discretion to ensure worker safety and “demonstrated the pervasive danger that COVID-19 poses to workers—unvaccinated workers in particular—in their workplaces.”
The Justice Department argued last week that blocking the requirements would result in “enormous” harm to the public.
“It will impose substantial, nonrecoverable compliance costs on those businesses. Those businesses will be faced with either incurring the costs of testing for the millions of employees who refuse to be vaccinated—and passing those costs on to consumers in the form of yet higher prices at a time of record inflation—or imposing the costs of testing upon their unvaccinated employees, who will quit en masse rather than suffer additional testing costs each week.”
21a0287p-0627 Business Groups Swiftly File Appeal Taking Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Fight to Supreme Court
27 business groups have already filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court late Friday (Dec. 17) night after a federal appeals court reinstated the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine-or-test mandate for over 80 million American workers, lifting the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ stay on the requirement.
The three-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the administration’s request to lift the stay on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s rule, published on November 5. The Cincinnati-based federal court took over the case after winning a multi-circuit ping pong lottery.
The appeal states:
“It will impose substantial, nonrecoverable compliance costs on those businesses. Those businesses will be faced with either incurring the costs of testing for the millions of employees who refuse to be vaccinated—and passing those costs on to consumers in the form of yet higher prices at a time of record inflation—or imposing the costs of testing upon their unvaccinated employees, who will quit en masse rather than suffer additional testing costs each week.”
