Supreme Court declines to block enforcement of Maine's vaccine mandate for health workers

Details: The governor's order requires all health care workers to get vaccinated by Friday or face losing their jobs without unemployment benefits.

• A group of health care workers sued, and earlier this month, a three-judge panel on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block the mandate from taking effect.

What they're saying: The majority of justices on Friday did not provide a reason for denying the health care workers' request to block enforcement of the mandate until they had exhausted their appeals.

• The three dissenting justices, Neil Gorsuch, writing, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr., disagreed and further argued that the medical workers deserve an exemption.
• "No one questions that these individuals have served patients on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic with bravery and grace for 18 months now," Gorsuch wrote in the dissent.

• "Yet, with Maine’s new rule coming into effect, one of the applicants has already lost her job for refusing to betray her faith; another risks the imminent loss of his medical practice."

The big picture: Maine is one of three states that have issued a mandate without religious exemptions for health care workers.

• New York and Rhode Island are tied up in similar legal battles.