Supreme Court declines to block Maine vaccine mandate for health care workers

The Supreme Court on Friday declined to block Maine's coronavirus vaccine mandate for health care workers.

The majority gave no reasons for the emergency ruling, reports The New York Times. The court's three most conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr., and Neil Gorsuch — issued a dissent, saying the fact that the state's policy includes no religious exemption meant that "health care workers who have served on the front line of a pandemic for the last 18 months are now being fired and their practices shuttered. All for adhering to their constitutionally protected religious beliefs."

Two other conservatives, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, filed a brief concurring opinion, siding with the majority and saying major decisions shouldn't be made "on a short fuse without benefit of full briefing and oral argument."

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