Monday 3 October 2022 10:57 PM Supreme Court REJECTS challenge to the Biden administration's vaccine mandate ... trends now

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed a vaccine mandate to stand for healthcare workers when it declined to take up a case brought by Missouri and mostly Republican-led states.

The decision not to take up an appeal was a win for the Biden administration, which in January watched the conservative court strike down its vaccine people working at large corporations to either get vaccinated or test for the coronavirus.

The efforts were both key prongs of the administration's effort to push vaccination in an effort to gain control of the coronavirus outbreak. 

It came on the first day at the Supreme Court was back in session, with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joining the outvoted liberal minority on the 6-3 conservative court. 

The justices turned away an appeal by Missouri and nine other states after a lower court declined to immediately consider their claims that the vaccine rule violates federal administrative law and tramples over powers reserved for the states under the U.S. Constitution. 

The administration imposed the rule in November 2021 as COVID-19 was raging, but it drew immediate pushback from people who said the president overstepped his authority.

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision in January to let Biden enforce the healthcare worker mandate while litigation on its legal merits continued in lower courts. The justices at the same time decided 6-3 to halt his administration's rule requiring vaccines or weekly COVID-19 tests for employees at businesses with at least 100 employees.

Citing the purpose of Medicare and Medicaid, the majority wrote in January: 'One such function—perhaps the most basic, given the Department’s core mission—is to ensure that the healthcare providers who care for Medicare and Medicaid patients protect their patients’ health and safety.'