Only what, a year and a half too late?
Court blocks COVID-19 vaccine mandate for US gov’t workers
President Joe Biden’s order that federal employees get vaccinated against COVID-19 has been blocked by a federal appeals court.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, in a decision Thursday, rejected arguments that Biden, as the nation’s chief executive, has the same authority as the CEO of a private corporation to require that employees be vaccinated.
The ruling from the full appeals court, 16 full-time judges at the time the case was argued, reversed an earlier ruling by a three-judge 5th Circuit panel that had upheld the vaccination requirement. Judge Andrew Oldham, nominated to the court by then-President Donald Trump, wrote the opinion for a 10-member majority.
The ruling maintains the status quo for federal employee vaccines. It upholds a preliminary injunction blocking the mandate issued by a federal judge in January 2022. At that point, the administration said nearly 98% of covered employees had been vaccinated.
Of course they got vaccinated. They mostly vote Democrat, and they want to keep their cushy jobs and expansive benefits. For those who didn’t, when do they get their jobs back and back pay? And, even with the mandate, people who got vaxxed were still getting COVID and still dying.
Meanwhile
LA County’s 3-year COVID Emergency Ends On March 31. Here’s What Will Change
After three years, Los Angeles County’s COVID emergency will end on March 31. Here’s what is changing in L.A. County.
Rent protections expire
The county Board of Supervisors rejected a proposal on Tuesday intended to soften the blow for renters who could soon face eviction. L.A. County’s COVID-19 emergency tenant regulations have given low-income tenants protections in eviction court if they can’t pay rent on time due to economic harms brought on by the pandemic. But those tenants will have to pay their April rent on time — or face eviction.
Wait, they still had all this stuff in place? County health employees will still be required to wear masks. Silly.
Is America’s Pandemic Really Over?
A little more than six weeks from now, on May 11, the U.S. will end its national and public-health emergency declarations over COVID-19, marking an official end to the country’s sweeping pandemic response. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that as part of that transition, the White House will also be disbanding what’s left of its COVID-response team, and national COVID coordinator Ashish Jha will most likely be leaving the administration. There are other signposts marking the end of the pandemic in America, too. The New York Times announced Thursday that it was shutting down its COVID data-gathering operation, which has for years given one of the most reliable by-the-numbers overviews of COVID’s toll. And two weeks ago, the venerable Johns Hopkins University COVID data tracker went dark, as well.
It’s over. Move on. Unfortuantely, we will never truly get a reckoning against those who thought they were dictators.