Court stays and dooms employer vaccine mandate
But the scientific rationale for the mandate had already collapsed
It did not come as much of a surprise after oral arguments, but, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court stayed the Biden administration vaccine mandate for businesses with 100 employees or more.
I’ll have more on that over the weekend, but the essential conclusion was that OSHA had no authority to impose such a rule in the absence of any congressional vote enabling them to act so broadly:
The Secretary has ordered 84 million Americans to either obtain a Covid–19 vaccine or undergo weekly medical testing at their own expense. This is no “everyday exercise of federal power.” It is instead a significant encroachment into the lives—and health—of a vast number of employees.
The ruling left open that Congress and the president could still enact such a law, but of course that isn’t going to happen. What’s more, while the justices were hanging their legal hats on an overreaching administrative state, the scientific rationale for the mandate was collapsing all around the administration anyway, as it became clear that the so-called vaccines don’t prevent transmission, which robbed the rule of any underlying reason for being.
While the drugs being used as vaccines to combat Covid-19 do continue to prevent more severe disease and reduce the risk of hospitalization, at least for a time, a mountain of evidence shows they do little to prevent infection and transmission.
Interestingly, as the evidence has grown, the administration’s narrative about the pandemic (and that of the corporate media) has been suddenly shifting.
The new narratives were being spun across the cable news universe last week. In an astonishingly short time, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledged that mRNA drugs do not prevent transmission, while CNN acknowledged that many “Covid” hospitalizations aren’t due to Covid at all.
The agency was also said to be reconsidering its mask policies in a recognition that non-respirator masks don’t work. Officials ultimately did not change the guidance, but were beefing up their pitch for the higher-grade masks on the CDC website.
CNN got in on the mask porn, too, this from CNN medical analyst Leana Wen:
Don’t wear a cloth mask. Cloth masks are little more than facial decorations. There’s no place for them in light of omicron.”
Most shocking of all, CDC director Rochelle Walensky admitted that the vast majority of Covid deaths caused by the Omicron variant are occurring among not just those who have comorbidities but those with multiple comorbidities.
Walensky delivered that news on ABC’s Good Morning America.
“The overwhelming number of deaths, over 75 percent, occurred in people who had at least four comorbidities,” she said. “So really, these are people who were unwell to begin with and yes, really encouraging news in the context of Omicron.”
The CDC later attempted to walk those comments back, saying Walensky meant to say that 75 percent of deaths among vaccinated individuals had at least four comorbidities, but that did little to quell the confusion because it was a tacit admission that vaccinated people were dying, too.
Over on CNN, Jake Tapper was calling for more transparency and detail about hospitalizations, after the New York state governor’s office released figures showing that, in 43 percent of Covid hospitalizations, the Covid was incidental, that is to say, the patient was admitted for another reason, such as an injury, and then tested positive for Covid”
We’re two years into this. If somebody’s in the hospital with a broken leg and they also have asymptomatic Covid, that should not be counted as hospitalized with Covid, clearly.
In another viral clip, it was Walensky again, this time laying out the truth about the vaccines to Wolf Blitzer, saying “What [vaccines] can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.”
Of course, preventing the transmission of the virus underpins the arguments for vaccine mandates — the only rationale for a mandate is to stop the spread of a contagious disease — and Walensky’s caution is backed up by a number of new studies.