Supreme Court docket denies bid to dam New Mexico Covid vaccination requirement

The Supreme Court docket on Tuesday rejected a bid to dam enforcement of a public well being order in New Mexico requiring staff at hospitals, nursing houses, prisons and different settings to be absolutely vaccinated in opposition to the coronavirus.

The order, which took impact in August, contains exemptions for folks with medical circumstances or disabilities, in addition to for individuals who declare their honest spiritual beliefs prohibit them from getting vaccinated.

Of their attraction asking the Supreme Court docket to dam the order, the petitioners, which included a former nurse who was fired after refusing to get the vaccine, argued that the vaccination guidelines violated their “constitutional rights to bodily integrity and to have interaction in a single’s chosen occupation.”

Decrease courts had rejected their claims. Justice Neil Gorsuch, who’s assigned to deal with appeals to the Supreme Court docket from New Mexico, denied the appliance with out remark.

No dissents from different justices had been listed on the docket. The rejection from Gorsuch, considered one of former President Donald Trump’s three picks to the nine-member excessive court docket, got here 5 days after the emergency software was filed.

Courts have weighed in on a rising record of lawsuits difficult government-imposed Covid vaccination guidelines on the state and federal stage. The excessive court docket has denied makes an attempt to dam vaccination guidelines in a number of states, together with Maine and New York.

The Biden administration’s sweeping mandate for corporations with 100 or extra staff was briefly blocked in a single federal appeals court docket however reinstated by a distinct court docket final week. An array of enterprise teams, Republican-led states and different entities on Monday requested the Supreme Court docket to as soon as once more block the federal vaccine mandate.