States have authority to fine or jail people who refuse coronavirus vaccine

 

As drugmakers race to develop a vaccine against the coronavirus, several legal questions are emerging: could the govt require people to urge it? Could people that refuse to roll up their sleeves get banned from stores or lose their jobs?

The short answer is yes, consistent with Dov Fox, a law professor and therefore the director of the middle for Health Law Policy and Bioethics at the University of San Diego .

"States can compel vaccinations in additional or less intrusive ways," he said in an interview.

"They can limit access to colleges or services or jobs if people aren't getting vaccinated. they might force them to pay a fine or maybe lock them up in jail."

Fox noted authorities within the us haven't attempted to jail people for refusing to vaccinate, but other countries like France have adopted the aggressive tactic.

In a landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the court ruled Massachusetts had the authority to fine people that refused vaccinations for smallpox.

That case formed the legal basis for vaccine requirements at schools, and has been upheld in subsequent decisions.

"Courts have found that when medical necessity requires it, the general public health outweighs the individual rights and liberties at stake," Fox said.

In 2019, NY City passed an ordinance that fined people that refused a measles vaccination.

That said, recent protests over face coverings show there might be significant backlash to a vaccine mandate, Fox said.

Just because states have the facility to try to to it, doesn't suggest it is the best public policy, he added.

Although states would have the authority to mandate vaccinations, there's more doubt about whether Congress could enact a federal requirement.

The most likely federal vaccination requirement would are available the shape of a tax penalty, but Fox said given the present composition of the Supreme Court, a federal vaccine requirement would likely be found unconstitutional.

Opponents of a federal mandate would cite the Supreme Court's 2012 decision on the Affordable Care Act, Fox said.

In that case, the justices ruled that Congress couldn't use its powers to manage interstate commerce to need people to shop for insurance , albeit the ACA's individual mandate was ultimately upheld on separate grounds.

That means the U.S. could have a patchwork of various vaccine requirements in several states.

States that explore a vaccine requirement should only do so if the vaccine is widely and readily available, Fox said.

"Otherwise you create an underclass of individuals who are less safe and without access to the essential means of society," he said.

States would wish to permit exemptions for people with legitimate medical risks, like pregnancy, but not exemptions on religious or philosophical grounds, he said.

"Religious exemptions aren't constitutionally required by the primary Amendment's Free Exercise clause, as long as the vaccine mandates don't single out religion; they are not motivated by a desire to interfere with it," he said.

In the workplace, private employers would have tons of flexibility to need vaccinations and fire workers who refuse them for love or money but legitimate medical concerns.

As long as employers show there are significant costs related to having unvaccinated workers, they might not got to offer religious exemptions to employees, Fox said.

Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, employers aren't required to accommodate religious employees if doing so would pose quite a "De minimis," or minimal cost.