According to the latest reports, the US Supreme Court just denied an emergency bid to block enforcement of NY’s covid vaccine mandate for healthcare workers.
CNBC noted that the legal challenge was filed by a group of 20 doctors and nurses.
These people argued that the state’s vaccine mandate violates the First Amendment to the Constitution because it fails to include a religious exemption.
According to the reports, the request for a temporary injunction had been presented to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is assigned to handle cases from New York.
“The court denied that request in a one-line order that did not provide any reasoning or explanation,” CNBC notes.
CNBC also noted that in a court brief responding to the health care workers, New York Attorney General Letitia James denied that the emergency vaccine rule shows any hostility toward religious beliefs.
“The rule’s medical exemption is tightly constrained in both scope and duration,” James wrote.
The statement continued and said the following:
“and it serves rather than undermines the rule’s objective of protecting the health of healthcare workers.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito are three of the court’s six-member conservative majority. They said in the order that they would have granted the bid to block the mandate.
The governor’s record “practically exudes suspicion of those who hold unpopular religious beliefs,” Gorsuch wrote in the dissent.
He continued and stated this:
“That alone is sufficient to render the mandate unconstitutional as applied to these applicants.”
A new covid study on Omicron is out
It’s been just reported that a new study is addressing important conclusions about the novel variant of the virus.
Washington Post revealed that Omicron seems to cause less severe illness than earlier variants of the coronavirus.
On the other hand, it’s also important to note the fact that this variant is more resistant to the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine widely used in South Africa.
