U.S. appeals court denies religious exemption for state’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers

A three-panel federal appeals court on Friday removed a lower court’s temporary injunction that had allowed healthcare workers to seek religious exemptions to New York state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate. 

According to an Associated Press report, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sent two court cases back to the lower courts, rejecting the plaintiffs’ argument that the state’s order violates their religious rights.

Decisions about religious exemptions are up to the employer “when workers agree not to work directly with patients,” New York’s deputy solicitor general, Steven Wu, told the court of appeals.

CNN reported that the state’s health department confirmed that almost 16,000 healthcare employees in New York had been granted religious exemptions by their employers before Friday’s court ruling.

Cameron Atkinson, the attorney for the plaintiffs in one of the cases, said he intends to try to take the matter all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court last week declined to even hear a case challenging Maine’s vaccine mandate on religious grounds.