Courts block two Biden administration Covid vaccine mandates
> Doughty said the CMS lacked the authority to issue a vaccine mandate that would require more than 2 million unvaccinated healthcare workers to get a coronavirus shot.<p>> "There is no question that mandating a vaccine to 10.3 million healthcare workers is something that should be done by Congress, not a government agency," wrote Doughty.<p>That's a good point. You can agree that its within the federal authority to mandate vaccines, but it really should be a decision made and explicitly endorsed by elected representatives rather than some agency (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) that I have never heard of until now and whose head is appointed by one person.<p>[EDIT]<p>Too often we look at the end results (e.g. will this increase vaccination rates) rather than the means of getting there. You see it on the left and right. If their guy is in power, they want to expand the scope and reach of their office. Everything is a crisis and someone can solve it if they're just given the right permissions.<p>And this eventually leads to dishonesty and loss of trust. Even news is reported through a utilitarian lens. Many journalists today think they're doing advocacy rather than reporting. They're not assigned topics but talking points. Someone could be the 'tech bad' guy and his stories are nominally about tech but about how big tech is subverting democracy, bad for the environment, you name it.<p>Could you imagine a news report about how the much touted vaccine efficacy of 95% didn't really pan out? It's true. Everyone was around 6 months ago and remembered the efficacy levels being thrown around. Now people are being gaslit to thinking they didn't hear what they heard and its about hospitalization. All because being honest could hurt the cause. And yes, vaccine efficacy was 95% and yes it does mean what you think it means [0]<p>/rant<p><a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00075-X/fulltext" rel="nofollow">https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...</a>