Judge Upholds Florida Unvaccinated-Protection Law – As Predicted; Lines May Not Be Able to Bar Unvaccinated Passengers From Cruises
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Florida To Uphold Unvaccinated-Protection Law
WASHINGTON, D.C. (June 18, 2021) - Federal Judge Steven Merryday has just ruled that the State of Florida is likely to prevail in its law suit seeking to uphold the validity of its law restricting so-called vaccine mandates, and issued a preliminary injunction to go into effect shortly.
This result was predicted by public interest law professor John Banzhaf, who argued that many businesses legally may and should impose vaccine mandates, but that these mandates may in some situations - as is the case in Florida - be blocked by state action.
As he wrote several days ago before today's unprecedented ruling:
"On the other hand, laws or even executive orders which seek to prevent most businesses from imposing restrictions or requirements based upon vaccination status probably are legal, says Banzhaf. Unless it infringes upon a fundamental right or discriminates on the basis of race or similar factors, a law will not be struck down as unconstitutional if its defenders can advance in its support any rational basis for it. While many judges might be dubious of the explanations offered for such laws, it would be hard to argue that all such proffered purposes are completely arbitrary, suggests Banzhaf."
However, the professor attempted to show that any such laws would be misguided since they would prevent private businesses from doing what arguably should be done to protect their own employees and customers.
He notes that similar laws in other states - reportedly including Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming - which restrict business from requiring proof of vaccination status (often called "vaccine passports"), are probably legal, but contrary to logic and the public interest.
Vaccination Prevents Over 95% Of All Covid Infections
Scientific and medical data accepted by the FDA, CDC, NIH, WHO, and most experts shows that vaccination prevents over 95% of all COVID infections, and an even higher percentage of the more serious cases requiring hospitalization and/or resulting in death, as well as also largely preventing the spread of the deadly disease to others.
Indeed, law professor Ilya Somin (George Mason) calculates that, for vaccinated Americans, the risk of death from COVID is many times lower than the risk of death from the common flu.
Somin points out that “the rate of death and serious illness among fully vaccinated Americans (132 deaths among over 95 million people, as of April 26), is vastly lower than the death rate caused by an average pre-pandemic flu season (up to about 35,000 deaths in a US population of some 330 million)." And this vast disparity in death risk would remain, he notes, even if - as some have suggested - the death rate from COVID has been significantly unreported.
So it certainly makes sense, especially once most Americans are vaccinated, to restrict entry or participation to those who have been vaccinated in order to slash the risk of infection by a deadly virus to staff who must work around them as well as to other patrons, passengers, customers, students, etc., Banzhaf argues.
