US Supreme Court rejects petition to overturn New York health workers' vaccine mandate

On Monday, the United States Supreme Court dismissed an emergency request to halt the implementation of New York's coronavirus vaccine mandate for healthcare employees. The emergency appeals were submitted by doctors, nurses, and other medical employees, who claim that they are being forced to choose between their employment and their religious beliefs, which prohibits them to get vaccinated, as per the reports of AP News. The court did not explain its decision, although it has previously refused to obstruct vaccine mandates in other cases.

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito disagreed with the verdict. Gorsuch along with Alito said in a 14-page opinion that thousands of New York healthcare employees now face job loss.

New York, along with Maine and Rhode Island, is one of only three states that do not accommodate health care employees who oppose vaccination on religious grounds. The court earlier denied a similar appeal filed by health care workers in Maine, with the same three justices dissenting.

90% of healthcare workers had been fully vaccinated

As of October 19, roughly 90% of healthcare workers had been fully vaccinated, with the majority of the remaining workers having received one of two doses, according to AP News. Less than 2% of nursing homes, adult care institutions, and hospital employees requested religious exemptions.

The petitioners had asked the Supreme Court in November to temporarily overturn New York's limitation on religious exemptions for healthcare workers who are opposed to forced COVID vaccination or to temporarily block the rule and then hear briefing and oral argument on the matter, according to CNBC. New York Attorney General Letitia James stated that the emergency vaccine requirement is not hostile to religious beliefs.

New York also announces face mask mandate

New York also announced the face mask mandate, which was issued by Governor Kathy Hochul on Friday, amid a winter rise in new cases, and was based on the state's weekly seven-day case rate as well as growing hospitalisations, according to the AP News.

At the start of the pandemic in April 2020, New York adopted a mask mandate that lasted more than a year. On Monday, the number of verified COVID-19 cases in the United States approached 50 million, and the number of deaths approached 800,000.

(Inputs from AP News)

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