Wonder how Sweden is doing through all of this. They were the country du jour to quote. EVERY SINGLE DAY WE HEARD ABOUT HOW SWEDEN WAS A COUNTRY APART FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD. What have they been doing lately?
Ok. Now the discussion is moving to emergency orders and due process in rule making and that process I’m not so familiar with. All I am saying is the legal pathway is there for testing and subsequently vaccines as an alternative. From a legal standard this called coercion. As far as the ethics of setting a precedent, that doesn’t bother me here. Covid is a true national emergency. I don’t see this as anything other than giving businesses the cover to require mandates, which is their right. Let’s agree to disagree then and time will tell. It should be a while before the rule drafted and then the law suits will follow.
I dont think you want to use the word coercion with respect to private employers and due process haha. What good is forcing testing once a week to be honest since you can still get and spread COVID in between your testing that far apart. Business can already require mandates as they are private businesses and can make it a condition to continue employment.... so there is no need for a questionable emergency order from a federal agency that imposes a fine... I dont remember any businesses asking the federal government to be honest. remember the cruise line issue where Carnival and RCL were requiring their staff to be vaccinated....there were no questions of what the private employer can do to be honest and the challenge to DeSantis was he cannot tell private employers to not require a mandate while still questionable if they can require vaxxes from customers. Also the NFL already was mandating employees of teams be vaxxed.
Who knows, maybe the Biden administration will have a different argument in court but I know legally the government can use existing powers to coerce outcomes. For example a tax as a “mandate” or highway funds tied to seatbelt laws. It’s a core principle of our governments legal powers. So the difference I see between DeSantis forbidding vaccination requirements and OSHA effectively mandating vaccination requirements is a matter of public health, or in this case occupation health and safety. The government certainly can act in the interest of health and safety in the workplace but can a state use its powers as a deterrent of good health practices, I doubt it. This seems pretty easy for me to determine as an inherent power to protect workers. As to customers and requirements for vaccines from a private business standpoint that’s easy too, of course they can. It’s their property. Now from the government standpoint, I honestly don’t know how to do that without a law. I’m not sure of any laws on the books or regulating powers that exist that can be used. But I was surprised with the route the Biden administration took with this OSHA stuff so I could be further surprised. I think it was Shakespeare who wrote we must never be beyond surprise. But like I said, my opinion is this is going to clear the courts in a few ways and I have no doubt there will be hiccups because there’s always exceptions to the rule and law suits are targeted toward sympathetic judge. It’s just a matter of time before we will all find out.
A vaccine law expert explains the 3 most likely legal challenges Biden's federal vaccine mandate might face https://www.businessinsider.com/vac...legal-challenges-biden-vaccine-mandate-2021-9 President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a series of new COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employees. The plan is the most substantial federal vaccine mandate in the country's history, according to a vaccine law expert. Brian Dean Abramson described to Insider the legal challenges the far-reaching mandate might face in court. President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a series of new, stricter COVID-19 vaccine requirements targeting both the public and private sector. Brian Dean Abramson, a leading expert on vaccine law, told Insider the plan is by far the most substantial federal vaccine mandate in the history of the country, in part, because there have historically been very few federal vaccine mandates at all. The administration will require employers with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccines or weekly testing — a move that will affect more than 80 million workers. Federal employees, contractors of federal agencies, and staff at all healthcare facilities that receive funding from Medicare or Medicaid will also be required to show proof of vaccination. The plan, which also includes the imposition of fines of up to $14,000 per violation for employers that ignore these mandates, is part of the president's attempt to counteract the Delta variant's threat in the US. "They've come from the states," Abramson said. "During the smallpox epidemics in the 19th century and early 20th centuries, it was fairly common for states to mandate smallpox vaccines for large portions of the population." Similarly, employer and school vaccine mandates have been historically abundant, as well, during different points in American history, Abramson said. Over the past few months, several large companies have already imposed their own COVID-19 vaccine requirements before Biden's Thursday announcement. "But it's been a very long time since we've had anything this far-reaching, and we've never had anything this far-reaching come from the federal government before," Abramson said. Biden's announcement that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration would soon be tasked with writing and enforcing the vaccine requirement elicited a slew of angry and defiant responses on Thursday afternoon, particularly from Republican lawmakers who accused the president of everything from "assaulting private businesses" to "trampling on civil liberties." With the fierce politicization of vaccines in recent months and the fervent political divide across the country, Abramson said the Biden administration's vaccine mandate is certain to face legal challenges. As he sees it, there are three prevailing questions that remain to be resolved. OSHA and the Commerce Clause The first possible legal hurdle to the president's intended vaccine mandate has to do with the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution, which gives Congress the constitutional power to regulate commerce both with foreign nations and among the states. The question the courts will likely have to answer is whether OSHA, a federal regulatory agency tasked with keeping workers safe, has the power to broadly mandate vaccines under the Commerce Clause. Congress passed the Occupational Safety and Health, which was signed by President Richard Nixon in 1970, that created OSHA. OSHA has historically been given broad authority to regulate workplace safety, instituting a number of standards across a variety of industries. Similarly, the Commerce Clause has been construed fairly broadly to allow the government to step in and impose its will when it can demonstrate that something — in this case, COVID-19 — has an impact on interstate commerce, Abramson said. "Obviously the COVID pandemic has affected interstate commerce," he said. "It travels from state to state and it can be transmitted by people in any walk of life." The Commerce Clause gives Congress the broad power to legislate; Congress has the power to delegate authority to agencies like OSHA; and OSHA has the authority to make and enforce rules that protect worker health and safety. A successful challenge under the Commerce Clause would be the most constitutionally effective in overriding or dismantling the Biden administration's mandate, Abramson said. "If there was a Commerce Clause challenge and it succeeded, that would have the strongest impact toward eliminating the ability of the federal government to require broad vaccination mandates," he said. But he also thinks that particular argument is weak. There's a separate possible challenge he thinks is stronger. Overly burdensome or discriminatory requirements Abramson said he anticipates several challenges will be raised regarding how exemptions are made available and applied to those who remain unvaccinated. The two most likely vaccine exemptions will be for those who have a religious opposition to the vaccine, and those who have a certain disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act that prevents them from receiving the shot, Abramson said. The question this challenge poses is: what is an appropriate, non-discriminatory, non-burdensome accommodation for those with exemptions? Historically, school students who have been exempt from vaccine requirements have not been treated any differently after receiving approval for their exemption, Abramson said. But COVID-19 has prompted a shift in these standards, and those who once would not have been treated any differently due to their vaccination status, now find themselves facing extra restrictions, like testing and masking. "The question of whether it's discriminatory or burdensome is probably a stronger argument," Abramson said. "But it isn't an argument that necessarily eliminates mandates." If such a challenge succeeded — something Abramson conceded was possible — the federal vaccine mandate would likely not be dismantled or overturned. Instead, it would prompt the regulation to be rewritten in a more carefully tailored way, Abramson said. Another hiccup in the overly-burdensome challenge is the fact that many vaccinated people have returned to wearing masks in public amid the spread of the Delta variant, meaning the presence of a mask no longer necessarily indicates whether a person is vaccinated or unvaccinated. The question of antibodies A third question, one that hasn't yet demanded the same attention as the previous two, is whether those who already had COVID-19 should be subject to vaccine mandates. Abramson said more and more unvaccinated people who already had the illness are starting to argue that they should be exempt from vaccine requirements because they have the COVID-19 antibodies that the vaccines deliver to their bodies. He said the challenge could end up being a due process clause: If you can prove you had COVID-19, you may end up with a compromise rule where a specific number of antibody levels could possibly exempt you from the vaccine. A long road ahead Biden's Thursday announcement detailing the federal government's vaccine mandate was heavy on speechifying and light on specifics. "We have to wait and see what OSHA says," Abramson said, noting that the final version of the government's mandate will likely be more nuanced. "There's a long sausage-making process between here and there." He said it's possible the final OSHA rule will incorporate measures to avoid the kinds of concerns that could lead a court to overturn the mandate. "My anticipation would be with the initial challenges, we're not going to see a suspension of this rule," he said.
Actually he is stating vaccines are very effective -- and the only end game here is to get everyone vaccinated. Just like we do for other diseases.
I just read this awful story about a grandmother and daughter who didn’t get vaccinated because of all of the misinformation and disinformation about healthy people not needing vaccines but the poor lady’s granddaughter had a breathing issue and the daughter caught Covid and gave it to the granddaughter and it did not end well. Now this poor lady and daughter are beside themselves with grief and regret. You should be ashamed of yourself for spreading this misinformation. Not everybody can see through it. Some people are just waitresses and cashiers who don’t know the difference between the bullshit people like you post and actual real medical information. You all need to stop. The misinformation you’re spreading is getting people killed and destroying people’s lives.
Every two days, Covid's death toll is equal to that of 9/11 -- this is due to the unvaccinated. It's time for the federal government to firmly take control of our response across the nation --- to guide people to be vaccinated so our society can get back to normal. A 9/11 every two days https://www.axios.com/covid-deaths-september-11-8b2b230f-9dd4-4c4c-b677-6df2be18ccc9.htm This weekend, we commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people. But we've lost track of the fact that at least that many will die of COVID-19 within the span of two days. The big picture: 9/11 was a shocking attack that sparked massive domestic foreign policy changes and conflict in two countries. While the pandemic has certainly led to enormous policy and lifestyle changes, the daily drumbeat of hundreds of COVID deaths in America isn't garnering the attention it once did. Case and death counts still make headlines, but they aren’t influencing our national conversation as much. Instead, these COVID deaths have faded into background of daily life. Many Americans not directly involved in patient care are paying little attention to, or are even trying to ignore, the ongoing pandemic. While the early weeks and months of the pandemic were coupled with a sense of unity around a shared enemy, the national tenor feels as divisive as ever as we battle over vaccines, masks and other measures aimed at turning the tide against the virus. We saw this phenomenon with each surge of this pandemic before vaccines had a chance to be widely distributed yet at the end of 2020. Deaths were rapidly rising, yet creating less impact over time. “In fact, the more who die, sometimes the less we care,” psychologist Paul Slovic told the Washington Post in December. Between the lines: Now deaths are on the rise again, with about 1,500 COVID deaths a day in the U.S. This grim comparison — as well as our collective compassion — is challenged by the fact we now have a vaccine. The bulk of patients who end up seriously ill or dead from COVID are unvaccinated — many by choice. Meanwhile, those killed or seriously injured on Sept. 11 had no choice. The bottom line: But people are still dying every day from COVID-19 — a lot of people. As we take time this weekend to absorb the massive loss the nation experienced on a single day two decades ago, it'd be valuable to use this moment to also consider the enormity of the daily losses America is suffering from COVID.