Tom Hals

(Reuters] – Tuesday’s ruling by a U.S. court affirmed that New York can not impose a COVID-19 mandate on health workers, despite religious exemption requests.

U.S. district judge David Hurd of Albany, New York ruled against the state’s attempts to interfere in religious exemptions requests.

The mandate was sued by seventeen workers. They claimed their employer had revoked or declined to allow them to review it due the emergency vaccine requirement of the state, which was published on August 26.

As vaccine critics gear up for fight against plans to be revealed soon by Biden’s administration to increase COVID-19 vaccine requirements, the ruling serves as a testing case.

New York’s Department of Health issued an Aug. 26 order to healthcare personnel requiring them to get vaccinated before Sept. 27, but the order didn’t allow for any religious exemptions.

Healthcare workers challenged the plan saying they didn’t support COVID-19 vaccines. They claimed that some vaccines had been created from embryonic stem cells. Because they fear being attacked in the press and sharing sensitive information about their health, workers filed a lawsuit using pseudonyms.

Employees argued that the government and the healthcare providers were treating religiously objectionable patients less favorably by granting them medical exemptions. This violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Hurd earlier directed, Sept. 20, that health care companies cannot deny religious exemptions requests until he’d ruled on them.

Vaccines are now highly politicized here in America, where only 60% of Americans have been vaccinated. This is far below the original goals of the Biden administration.

There are at least 24 countries that have set vaccine requirements for their workers. Most often, these states do so in the context of healthcare.