Vaccine mandate news – live: Biden ‘disappointed’ Supreme Court blocked ‘common-sense life-saving’ Covid rule

As the US fights to slow the spread of Covid-19’s Omicron variant, reports have surfaced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is considering recommending that those who can should wear a higher standard of mask when in public – specifically the KN95 and N95 masks that have been in high demand for the last two years.

President Joe Biden said his administration will unveil a plan to provide free masks to Americans, to encourage their use in order to stem the spread of Covid-19.

Mr Biden also said on Thursday that his administration will order another half-billion at-home Covid-19 tests for mailing to any American who requests one on a yet-to-be unveiled website, adding to a previous order of 500 million placed by the administration last month.

ABC News is under fire for its editing of a “Good Morning America” interview with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky that created uncertainty that’s being exploited by vaccine critics.

The CEO of United Airlines has told his staff in an open letter that the company’s vaccine mandate has ended the “weekly” deaths that previously plagued the organisation.

The Scotus ruling does not prevent private employers from requiring vaccination, nor does it undermine existing workplace vaccination requirements that were put in place voluntarily by employers.

The White House will continue to encourage private employers to institute their own mandates.

NBC News reports that the number of Covid-19 cases in the US has now topped 63 million since the start of the pandemic.

There were 1 million new cases in 24 hours from the highly transmissible Omicron variant.

Before the White House introduced vaccine mandates in the late summer of 2021, the vaccine had been available for almost nine months.

To encourage take-up, a number of incentive schemes around the country received White House support.

Ben Wakana of the Covid-19 response team provides a few examples:

If you are unvaccinated you are far more likely to get hospitalised and die from Covid-19.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration doesn’t make many headlines. Charged with keeping America’s workplaces safe, it usually busies itself with tasks such as setting and enforcing standards for goggles, hardhats, and ladders.

And then it was directed to write a rule requiring employers with more than 100 workers to require vaccines or produce weekly test results.

The Supreme Court voted 6-3 along ideological lines to toss out Joe Biden’s mandate for businesses requiring those with more than 100 workers to institute vaccination or regular testing requirements.

A second 5-4 ruling in the court allowed the administration’s requirement for healthcare workers to be vaccinated to remain in place. Conservative justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh sided with the liberal justices on that decision.

However, the first ruling is nevertheless a major blow to the plan the president announced last year.

In their majority opinion, the six justices wrote that although Covid-19 was indeed a hazard faced by many employees at their workplaces, it did not fall under the legal definition of an “occupational hazard” that OSHA, the US government agency which enforces labour standards, could regulate.