Vaccine mandate for some health workers blocked in 10 states

The judge’s ruling, which covers the 10 states that brought the case, downplayed the effectiveness of the vaccines, saying that “the public would suffer little, if any, harm from maintaining the ‘status quo’ through the trial in this case.”

The mandate came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It covers certain healthcare professionals at providers participating in Medicare and Medicaid, and sets a deadline of December 6 for these workers to receive the first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

It will be blocked in Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming

U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp, a nominee for President Donald Trump, said in a 32-page order that those challenging the mandate were likely to succeed with their arguments that the CMS lacked the authority to implement the requirement. He also said the administration had likely violated the Public Administration Act in how it rolled out the policy. In issuing the preliminary injunction, Schelp pointed to claims from the challengers that health facilities would suffer major staff shortages if the claim was not blocked.

“In summary, the plaintiffs ‘evidence shows that facilities – particularly rural ones – are likely to face crisis standards of care or have no choice but to close to new patients or close completely, both of which would cause significant and irreparable harm to the plaintiffs’ citizens,” he wrote. he.

Vaccines have largely been shown to be an important tool in stopping the spread of Covid-19. However, Schelp pointed to a line in the regulatory filing that revealed the mandate, noting the uncertainty about the vaccine’s effects, including its effectiveness in preventing “disease transmission in the vaccinated.”

Schelp repeatedly referred to that line in his order. “And although the effectiveness of the vaccine, according to the CMS, in preventing disease transmission from the vaccinated is not known at present, it is known based on the evidence before the court that the mandate will have a crippling effect on a significant number of health services. plaintiffs’ states, especially in rural areas, “he said.

The judge said that in drafting the claim, CMS relied too much on data from long-term care facilities to justify the implementation of the mandate on other types of providers.

“While a comprehensive mandate may make sense in relation to LTCs, based on CMS evidence, CMS does not present similar evidence to impose a broad comprehensive mandate on the other fourteen covered facilities,” Schelp wrote.

The lawsuit was filed last month by Missouri and nine other states. It is one of several lawsuits attacking the HHS mandate, and the Biden administration faces legal challenges to other vaccine mandates that the federal government has sought to implement. In a separate case brought by Florida against the HHS rule, a judge denied Florida’s request to block the mandate.

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