Today, following a lawsuit from Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt and 10 other states, the United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, issued a preliminary injunction, halting the Joe Biden Administration from enforcing its Covid vaccine mandate on healthcare workers in the states that sued.
Those states include Alaska, which joined the lawsuit as it was filed on Nov. 10.
“Earlier today, the United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri, issued a preliminary injunction halting the Biden Administration from enforcing its vaccine mandate on healthcare workers. This is a huge victory for healthcare workers in Missouri and across the country, including rural hospitals who were facing near certain collapse due to this mandate,” Schmitt said in a statement. “While today’s ruling is a victory, there’s more work to be done, and I will keep fighting to push back on this unprecedented federal overreach.”
This is a stay on the enforcement of the mandate, as the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals determines the merits of lawsuits over the mandate’s actual legality.
The stay means hospitals and medical centers cannot demand healthcare workers be fully vaccinated for Covid or lose their jobs. At least not by using the Biden mandate as the reason. Hospitals and medical centers can still act on their own, and most in Alaska do require a vaccine to continue employment.
The mandate that has been put on hold required nearly every employee, volunteer, and third-party contractor working at 15 categories of healthcare facilities to be vaccinated with at least one shot against Covid-19 by Dec. 6.
Read the injunction against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS):
