Medical schools, teaching hospitals urge Supreme Court to uphold vaccine mandates

Medical schools and their teaching hospitals want to see the U.S. Supreme Court uphold a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers, particularly in light of the ongoing wave of cases from the omicron variant, the group representing those schools argued.

The Association of American Medical Colleges joined in a friend-of-the-court brief arguing in favor of the mandate. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the case Friday, along with another case where the vaccine mandate for large employers is being challenged. Georgia is one of the states that has sued to block the health care worker mandate and those for other sectors.

"After health care heroes went above and beyond the call of duty to keep Americans safe and healthy throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, (President) Joe Biden is now threatening their livelihood if they refuse COVID-19 vaccination," Gov. Brian Kemp said. "Yet another unlawful mandate from this administration will only worsen worker shortages in a critical-need area as we continue to balance the everyday healthcare needs of hardworking Georgians and fighting COVID-19." 

The AAMC represents Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University and University of Georgia. Ironically, the two universities are also represented by the state of Georgia in its suit against the Biden Administration's vaccine mandate for federal contractors. That lawsuit is working its way through the appeals process.

Ultimately, the court will have to decide whether the federal agencies that issued those mandates "exceeded the authority given them by Congress," said Frank Trinity, Chief Legal Officer for the AAMC. But of more immediate concern is whether the mandates can be enforced while the case is being decided by the various courts.

"The stakes are very high," Trinity said. "The Solicitor General of the United States (representing the Administration) has warned the court that thousands of patients may die unnecessarily in the coming months if the federal mandates are not allowed to take effect right now."

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The group presents a number of arguments for a health-care worker mandate, not the least of which is those settings "have documented higher rates of infection and death," particularly among elderly and chronically ill patients, he said. There is also widespread consensus in the scientific community that the vaccines are "safe and effective and they are by far the most effective way to prevent COVID-19 infection," Trinity said.

He also rebutted that mandates would cause workers to quit and lead to an even greater shortage of health care personnel. That rate has actually proved to be around 1% among those institutions that have implemented their own vaccine mandates, Trinity said.

"That (rate) is low and manageable and a fraction of the risk of health care workers contracting COVID and passing it along to colleagues, passing it on to families, passing it along to patients," he said.

The omicron variant is causing havoc among member hospitals, said Dr. Janis M. Orlowski, Chief Health Care Officer for the group.

"We are overrun," she said. Across the country, "there are limited ICU beds available, there are limited hospital beds available, and the Emergency Rooms are chock-full."

On top of that, as the group talks to hospitals across the country, "we are hearing that there is very limited availability of therapeutics for COVID," Orlowski said. That means that "vaccination is really our best solution," said David Skorton, president and CEO of the AAMC.

But in the meantime, states are taking a patchwork approach, with some requiring vaccines and others blocking mandates, which creates the "perfect opportunity for the virus to spread and possibly mutate further," Trinity argued. "If ever there was a time for a consistent national approach to a national threat, this is that time."