OSHA takes COVID setback

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) retreated from its COVID vaccine mandate stance today. Without waiting for any further litigation, OSHA withdrew its Emergency Temporary Standard on COVID for private businesses employing 100 or more people. But this does not mean they have conceded the war – only that they have retreated part-way.

OSHA takes back its temporary rule but moves for a permanent one

The OSHA Rule would have required any private employer of 100 or more people to require every employee to either:

1. Accept the COVID vaccine, or
2. Submit to weekly testing.

Today the Children’s Defense Fund gave the lowdown on what the agency actually did. Here one can read the agency’s announcement.

In a press release, the agency said:

Although OSHA is withdrawing the vaccination and testing ETS as an enforceable emergency temporary standard, the agency is not withdrawing the ETS as a proposed rule. The agency is prioritizing its resources to focus on finalizing a permanent COVID-19 Healthcare Standard.

Which means: the agency has taken a strategic retreat and has not surrendered. Any soldier knows: until the enemy surrenders, the war rages on. So it does in this case.

The strategic retreat accomplishes one thing: all pending challenges to the OSHA Rule now become moot. The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Judicial Circuit was ready to hear argument on the merits of the Rule. Now the case of Daily Wire v. OSHA and other such cases are off the docket.

The withdrawal also comes after Justice Sonia Sotomayor embarrassed herself by quoting wildly inaccurate statistics on hospitalizations, including pediatric hospitalizations, for COVID. It also comes after the COVID narrative has begun to unravel. At least two countries are lifting all restrictions. In the USA, Starbucks had planned to issue its own OSHA-like rule. After the “Supreme Embarrassment,” Starbucks backed down.