Making Mandatory: Vaccines in the Workplace

(Source) According to the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker, after hitting a peak in early January 2021 of over 300,000 new American coronavirus infections in a single day, the number of new cases began falling precipitously over the ensuing months, with the seven-day moving average dropping to 56,000 by late March. Not coincidentally, COVID vaccination efforts in the same time frame have been ramping up—as of February 1, 2021, 32.2 million vaccines were administered in the U.S., with President Biden aiming to vaccinate 1.5 million more Americans each day. With over 200 million doses in under two months, the Biden administration’s original goal has been far exceeded, as 43% of Americans have already received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine as of the date of this writing. A consequence of the vaccination objective progressing at such an expeditious rate is that the overnight metamorphosis from in-person to remote work will likely begin to revert quickly as a number of large corporations, including Amazon, Apple, and Goldman Sachs, are expecting their workers to make a return to the office by midsummer.   While Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has envisioned that half of the 48,000 employees at his company could be moving to [read more]

Immunity Passports: A Silver Bullet or a Security Blanket?

(Source) As COVID-19 infection rates remain high, many wonder when and how life will return to normal. The policies currently in place to limit the number of new infections have primarily focused on restricting movement and access to public spaces. While this has helped limit the spread of the virus, it has also resulted in one of the largest global economic recessions in decades. The combination of unemployment, fragmented trade streams, a reduction in spending, and a reduction in local and international travel has led experts to predict a global economic contraction of GDP of just over 5%.  Leaders in several countries, most notably Chile, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, have considered the creation of immunity passports as a potential strategy to safely reopen and stabilize their nation’s economies. An immunity passport is an official document that would certify when an individual has acquired immunity, either through infection and subsequent recovery or by vaccination, to COVID-19. While immunity passports could provide national and local governments with a way to return to pre-pandemic life, several practical, legal, and ethical considerations raise questions about the efficacy of such a program. If governments hope that immunity passports will effectively limit [read more]

No More Zoom Law School?: The Constitutionality of Mandatory Vaccine Laws

(Source) “We’re very close to [the COVID-19] vaccine,” former President Trump stated in a press brief on September 16, 2020, suggesting that a vaccine could be ready by election day. Then-President-elect Biden responded that he did not trust the President to determine when a vaccine would be ready for the public. On November 9, 2020, Pfizer, as part of Operation Warp Speed, announced early results from its COVID-19 vaccine trial that suggest that the their vaccine was more than 90 percent effective. Since the election, President Biden has been more aggressive in ensuring that more vaccines are available by pledging to purchase 200 million addition vaccine doses. Assuming that the vaccine can be delivered safely and effectively, can the state and federal governments require such vaccine? State Government The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits any state from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.” However, the liberty protected by the Constitution is not absolute. The Supreme Court has recognized that a state can exercise its police power by enacting reasonable regulations to protect public health and safety. The Supreme Court first addressed the constitutionality of mandatory vaccine laws in 1905. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Court [read more]

Vaccine Torts and Bruesewitz v. Wyeth

Professors Jeff Van Detta and Joanna Apolinsky comment on Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, which ruled that federal law immunized vaccine-manufacturers from design-defect tort claims under state law. The Supreme Court cited Detta and Apolinsky's article "Rethinking Liability for Vaccine Injuries", published in the JLPP, in their holding. [read more]