The White House will continue to urge states and businesses to impose vaccine and testing requirements even though the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s federal mandate Thursday afternoon.
While the court did strike down the Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule directing businesses with 100 employees to require vaccines or tests, the requirements for health workers were upheld, which Biden stated “will save lives.”
“It will cover 10.4 million health care workers at 76,000 medical facilities,” he wrote in a statement. “We will enforce it.”
SCOTUS BLOCKS BIDEN’S TEST-OR-VACCINE MANDATE, UPHOLDS HEALTHCARE REQUIREMENTS
“At the same time, I am disappointed that the Supreme Court has chosen to block common-sense life-saving requirements for employees at large businesses that were grounded squarely in both science and the law. This emergency standard allowed employers to require vaccinations or to permit workers to refuse to be vaccinated, so long as they were tested once a week and wore a mask at work: a very modest burden,” the president continued. “As a result of the Court’s decision, it is now up to States and individual employers to determine whether to make their workplaces as safe as possible for employees, and whether their businesses will be safe for consumers during this pandemic by requiring employees to take the simple and effective step of getting vaccinated.”
Biden directly called on “business leaders to immediately join those who have already stepped up — including one third of Fortune 100 companies — and institute vaccination requirements to protect their workers, customers, and communities.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki similarly celebrated at Thursday’s briefing the court’s decision on the healthcare requirements. She noted two recent polls showing nearly 60% of respondents supporting workplace vaccine and testing requirements and 60% of business owners already putting or planning to put those requirements in place.
“Employees want to feel safe in the workplace,” she said. “[Businesses] want to incentivize workers to come back to the workplace because they’ve seen how large companies across the country implement this and see how effective it is.”
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You can watch Thursday’s entire briefing below.
