Judge Terry Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana issued a preliminary injunction halting the start of Biden’s national vaccine mandate for health care workers. The injunction temporarily blocks the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) from enforcing the order.
“There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million health care workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency,” Doughty wrote. “It is not clear that even an act of Congress mandating a vaccine would be constitutional.”
Doughty’s ruling applies nationwide except in 10 states, where CMS was already blocked from enforcing the mandate due to a separate order issued on Monday by a federal court in Missouri. The judge in St. Louis sided with the 10 states which joined a lawsuit against Biden’s requirement that all health workers in hospitals and nursing homes be fully vaccinated by Jan. 4.