Eleven Republican-ruled states in the United States (US) sued the Joe Biden administration on Friday, 5 November, to prevent it from forcing large companies to make COVID-19 vaccine compulsory for its workers, Reuters reported.
The regulations in their current form apply to companies that have employed 100 or more workers.
The move is part of the latest resistance that the Biden government has been facing for months in its attempts to get the whole country vaccinated.
The lawsuit was filed by the attorney generals of the 11 states, which argues that the "mandate is unconstitutional, unlawful, and unwise."
The leader of this effort was Attorney General Eric Schmitt of Missouri.
Other nine republican states that joined in on the lawsuit filed at the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit by Missouri were Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming, reported the New York Times (NYT).
Interestingly, the Attorney General of Iowa, Tom Miller, is a Democrat.
The Biden administration had initially set 4 January 2022 as the hard deadline for companies to make vaccinations mandatory or ensure weekly testing of employees.
If the lawsuit is defeated and the mandate is followed, 84 million workers are estimated to be covered, NYT added.
Approximately, 31 million of them are partially or completely unvaccinated.
(Inputs from Reuters and New York Times.)
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