A federal judge in South Georgia has temporarily blocked President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate for federal contractors and subcontractors.
U.S. District Judge Stan Baker issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday temporarily halting enforcement of the nationwide vaccine requirement for individuals who have contracts with the federal government.
The order means that all three major Biden vaccine policies for people not employed by the federal government are frozen nationwide. The mandates were intended for contractors, certain healthcare workers and employees of larger companies.
The contractor mandate had already been blocked in Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee after an order was issued in a separate case.
Judge Baker said in his order that blocking the federal contractor policy would "essentially, do nothing more than maintain the status quo; entities will still be free to encourage their employees to get vaccinated, and the employees will still be free to choose to be vaccinated. In contrast, declining to issue a preliminary injunction would force Plaintiffs to comply with the mandate, requiring them to make decisions which would significantly alter their ability to perform federal contract work which is critical to their operations."
The case was initially brought by seven states, led by Georgia. Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade organization, as well as its local Georgia chapter, sought to intervene in the case. The national trade organization was also among those who asked the judge to block the mandate. The continued onslaught of requests led him to block the vaccine rules nationwide while the case continues to play out on the federal level.
