The Department of Justice asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to allow a vaccine mandate aimed at certain extra health care workers to go into effect nationwide, marking the first time the justices have been asked to weigh in on a federal mandate the Biden administration put in place in order to get more Americans vaccinated in the midst of a surge of the Delta and Omicron coronavirus variants.
So far, lower courts have blocked the health care worker mandate from being enforced in about half the country.
The vaccine policy in question was rolled out by the US Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which sought to require the Covid-19 vaccine for health care workers at certain providers that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. According to government estimates, the mandate regulates more than 10.3 million health care workers in the United States