The NBA, NFL and NHL have been hit with a rash of COVID outbreaks in recent weeks, leaving teams with depleted rosters and postponing some games, while college football has been forced to cancel a few bowl games.
Now imagine similar scenarios playing out at many restaurants, stores, hotels and factories across the U.S.
A federal mandate for companies with 100 or more employees to ensure they’re vaccinated or tested weekly could worsen severe worker shortages — if it’s upheld in court —- by forcing staffers who test positive to quarantine even if they have no symptoms, employment lawyers say.
Such worker absences could become widespread, particularly at workplaces where employees can’t work remotely, such as stores and restaurants. That’s because COVID’s omicron variant is highly contagious but often results in milder cases or positive tests without symptoms, lawyers say. Within a single week in mid-December, omicron surged in the U.S., from making up just 13% of all COVID cases to 73%.
“A lot more people will test positive than before,” says James Sullivan, co-chair of law firm Cozen O’Connor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration-Workplace Safety Practice Group. “It will be a testing/quarantining extravaganza!”
The Supreme Court on January 7, is scheduled to hear oral arguments on whether President Biden’s vaccination-or-testing mandate can take effect as scheduled on February 9.
The directive was temporarily blocked by a court before another appeals court...
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