President Joe Biden had issued a mandate in 2020 requiring federal employees to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

An appeals court blocked President Joe Biden’s order requiring federal employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a measure to curb the spread of the virus during the pandemic.

The U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans rejected arguments that Biden has the same authority as the head of a private corporation to require employees to be vaccinated.

This decision, backed by 10 judges, reverses a preliminary ruling by a three-judge 5th Circuit panel that had upheld the vaccination requirement.

The ruling maintains the status quo for federal employee vaccinations. Opponents argued that it was an encroachment on the lives of federal workers that neither the Constitution nor federal statutes authorize.

Biden issued an executive order in September 2021 requiring COVID-19 vaccination for all federal employees, with exceptions for medical and religious reasons. The requirement went into effect months later.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Brown, who was appointed by Donald Trump to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, issued a nationwide injunction against the requirement in January 2022 and the case then went to the 5th Circuit.

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