The US Supreme Court has blocked President Joe Biden’s mandate directing large companies to impose “vaccine or test” mandates on their employees, although it allowed a separate rule requiring healthcare workers be vaccinated against Covid-19 to take effect.
The decision on the private employer mandate deals a blow to the Biden administration’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic as hospitalisations linked to the virus have reached new highs across the country because of the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.
The ruling landed in the midst of a tough week for the White House, as the president faced a rebuke from pivotal Democratic senators in his attempt to pass voting rights legislation, Russia rejected US calls for de-escalation in the stand-off over Ukraine and the consumer price index rose by its greatest annual pace since 1982, fuelling inflation fears.