Washington's Public Health Officers Can Order Quarantine Under A Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court's decision on the COVID-19 vaccine mandates is monumental at this point in the political and legislative process because federal and state governments are pushing bills that would detain and quarantine citizens.
In Washington State, WAC 246-100-040 starts with saying that local health officers can issue emergency orders "to immediately detain for purposes of isolation or quarantine following subsection (3) of this section, or may petition the superior court ex parte for an order to take the person or group of persons into involuntary detention for purposes of isolation or quarantine by subsection (4) of this section."
Section (3) says that detentions must be for a maximum of 10 days, and section (4) outlines how local public health officials will petition the superior court for the ex parte involuntary commitment. Section (4) states, "The suspected communicable disease or infectious agent if known." That means that this isn't just about COVID-19, but whatever the local health officials deem necessary to quarantine someone for.
The OSHA COVID-19 vaccine mandate would ensure that employers with 100 employees or more would force their employees to get the COVID-19 vaccine or a weekly COVID-19 test. It means that employers would lose many employees if there were no other option besides the COVID-19 vaccine. With COVID-19 tests running low, testing might not be an option. It seems that President Joe Biden's Administration wants that to happen so that everyone has to get vaccinated.
Chief Justice Roberts said, "This has been referred to as a workaround." Roberts believes the Biden Administration has overreached. Roberts continued, "Fifty years ago, Congress passed a general provision, but I think it's hard to argue that it gives free rein to the agencies."
That's what a lot of U.S. citizens think as well. There are many push backs from the unvaccinated, and the vaccinated who believe that the mandates are illegal and unconstitutional.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor compared humans to machines and virus software, showing that there doesn't seem to be a real consideration for the constitution or legal process that some Supreme Court Justices consider when ruling on cases. It's sad but true that radical Democrats have injected themselves into every area of American life, even the highest courts.
Sotomayor also alluded to 100,00 children being severely infected with COVID-19, but that number is around 96,500 more than the actual number of hospitalized children, which sits at 3,342.
The other argument that was heard was from Missouri against the Biden Administration, forcing health care workers to get the COVID-19 vaccine after they worked through the entire pandemic and now have to choose between getting vaccinated or losing their job. The same workers who were called heroes in 2020 are the villains of 2021 because they've seen the risk versus reward ratio, and after working around COVID-19, millions of them getting COVID-19, they've chosen to either get the vaccine or not. That choice should be theirs and theirs alone, not a tyrannical government.
Louisiana solicitor general Elizabeth Murrill said the COVID-19 vaccine and mandate was "an invasive, irrevocable, forced medical treatment" and "a bureaucratic power move that is unprecedented."
Either of the mandates wouldn't stop the spread of COVID-19 or the hospitalizations or death. The vaccines are ineffective at protecting against infection but rather have properties that lessen the symptoms for some, but not all, of the COVID-19 patients. With Omicron being very mild, there's a better chance than ever to allow herd immunity to be reached with or without a vaccine so that Americans can live their lives and the government can stay out of it.