#26: Vaccine Mandates Heard by Supreme Court
#26: Vaccine Mandates Heard by Supreme Court
My heartburn started early on Friday morning...
Hello All,
Well, Friday was a big day for President Biden’s vaccine mandates - both the mandate to vaccinate-or-test for companies with at least 100 employees, and the mandate that would require most healthcare workers to be vaccinated. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Friday morning in an hours-long session that resulted in many head-scratching highlights, as well as a few strong moments for those of us against the mandates themselves.
I had the audio stream playing in the background for the early portion of the hearing - the part focused on the mandate for large employers. And wow, was it a DOOZY. Including some of the most factually-inaccurate statements I’ve heard throughout the pandemic!
Honestly, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor had several shocking takes, perhaps none as inaccurate as this one: “We have hospitals that are almost at full capacity with people severely ill on ventilators. We have over 100,000 children, which we've never had before, in serious condition, many on ventilators,” she said. (Source: Fox News)
And yet, this total isn’t anywhere close to reality. See the tweet below Phil Kerpen, which clarifies two important points - one, the actual number is WAY below 100,000, and two, of those cases many/most are incidental. Meaning the kids were hospitalized for something other than COVID, but TESTED positive. There’s a big difference there.
Kyle Lamb offered additional insight - since July 2020, approximately 89,000 children have been admitted with COVID in total. Justice Sotomayor was still ~11,000 too high even if you go all the way back to July 2020 and do a running count!
Today, Justice Sotomayor made a remarkable claim that 100,000 children are in serious condition. Just how bad is that claim? As Phil said, there are about 3,300 currently hospitalized and there have been a total of ~89,000 admitted (with) COVID-19 since July 2020.This is just absolutely astonishing. "100,000 children in serious condition," per Sotomayor. Where do these people obtain their misinformation? The current national pediatric COVID census per HHS is 3,342. Many/most incidental.
Phil Kerpen @kerpen
Justice Sotomayor certainly raised my eyebrows with an analogy of regulating a human “spewing” a virus to a machine spewing sparks in the workplace. OSHA obviously will have an issue with a faulty/unsafe piece of machinery in the workplace, which it can regulate. But my goodness, comparing a human being to a faulty machine… others were taken aback by this commentary, including Jenin Younes below.
Justice Kagan let her feelings be known quite early in the process, stating that the vaccines/masks are the best ways to stop COVID transmission. In fact, she used the phrase “beyond settled” - needless to say, if I wasn’t sweating before this comment, I certainly was afterwards.
I’ve linked several times to papers pointing out that both vaccinated and unvaccinated people can become infected and spread COVID. This is obvious to everyone paying attention to the world today, perhaps even more so with Omicron as some data suggest negative efficacy (meaning vaccinated persons may be MORE likely to be infected with Omicron) - and yet Justice Kagan says it’s “beyond settled” that these are the best tools in our toolkit. Emma Woodhouse put it nicely - this is science and a data fail. I’d add a failure of common sense, as well.
Justice Breyer, joining with his liberal colleagues on the Court, had several moments, too. Personally, I found his questions and tone to be both condescending and alarmist - he seems like the type who would run away from anyone unvaccinated. In fact, he suggested that many others might quit their jobs just to avoid working together with “unvaccinated others” so that they don’t die, or go to the hospital, or have to stay home for two weeks. Justice Breyer was also utterly perplexed by the request to stay the mandate based on the number of cases (even though they’re higher now than they were last year WITHOUT vaccines). Again, Emma Woodhouse best summarizes these issues below.
I was in a full-on sweat after an hour or so of listening to this kind of inaccurate commentary. Such inaccuracies are unfortunately common in everyday life, especially after two years of non-stop media fear-mongering and bad messaging from the public health experts. But hearing them from those representing our great nation’s highest court? That was incredibly disappointing…
Alas, not all was lost. Justices on the right soon followed with more pressing questions about the mandates, as well as the vaccines:
Justice Roberts seemed to prefer this issue be handled by Congress and the states, questioning the mandates as a “workaround” as they’ve been referred to.
Justice Thomas questioned the notion of a “temporary emergency” and what factors decide what qualifies, as well as whether vaccines were the “only” treatment for COVID.
Justice Alito had me cheering when he cornered the government rep on vaccine risks - as opposed to OSHA mandating workers in certain settings wear hardhats, a mandate for COVID vaccines come with risk for the individual! This is categorically different!
Alito: These vaccines have benefits and risks, and some people who take these vaccines will face adverse risks, right? Gov't lawyer: Yes... Alito: I'm making the point there is a risk, some risk, with the vaccines. In that way, this is not like OSHA mandating a hardhat, right?Justice Alito suggests OSHA is trying to "Squeeze an elephant into a mousehole" by trying to use a general law passed many years ago as the legal basis for the mandate. https://t.co/2ZFPl7HAZE
Election Wizard @ElectionWiz
Justice Barrett echoed similar concerns on the “emergency” environment, questioning when such emergencies will end.
Justice Gorsuch questioned why the flu vaccine wasn’t mandated each year when it kills thousands annually. He also pointed out that Congress has had over a year to act on this.
I’m summarizing quite a bit, but folks, at the end of the day we’re looking at an issue of health and safety being decided by the courts. It should have never gotten this far - the agencies and professionals in charge of protecting the public health failed on many fronts, and now the fate of millions of workers are in the hands of the Supreme Court. A Court which is better-suited to debate limits of government power rather than efficacy and safety of COVID vaccines.
Sure, there are aspects of this mandate that are right up the Court’s alley - does the federal government, through OSHA, have the power to mandate something so massively impactful to private companies throughout the country, sending shockwaves throughout the entire economy - something that has never been seen before?
But as the liberal judges demonstrated, even the Highest Court of the United States wasn’t immune to some of the ugliest parts of the COVID pandemic - the bad data, fear-mongering and “othering” of the unvaccinated. That was unsettling to behold, even with the last two years dragging down my expectations for pretty much every institution that I once had total faith in.
We shall see what the next few days/weeks bring. I tend to write these posts at night and schedule-send them for the morning, so as of the time of writing - we’re in a waiting period. But I am hopeful on the large employer mandate. CNN noted Justice Sotomayor’s inaccuracies and seemed to predict a rejection for that one, while leaving the door open on the mandate affecting health care workers.
As I’ve stated many times on this blog, I am against mandates. I believe in informed consent and personal choice in one’s bodily injections, no matter what industry you work in. And of course, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that something very important was missing from today’s discussion….
WHERE WAS NATURAL IMMUNITY?
Why aren’t we talking about the millions of Americans who have already had and recovered from COVID? For the love of everything good and pure, someone send a link to Brownstone Institute’s list of studies to the Supreme Court.
Or hey, the Justices could subscribe to the Dude with Decency blog - that works, too.
Thanks for reading, all. More to come - if anything breaks early, I’ll try to send an update! I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
-G