The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is asking a federal appeals court to immediately reinstate the agency’s vaccine mandate, imposed on companies employing 100 or more workers.

OSHA’s mandate was previously blocked by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, prompting the agency to suspend the mandate while litigation plays out in the judicial system.

The 5th Circuit decided that “the Mandate threatens to substantially burden the liberty interests of reluctant individual recipients put to a choice between their job(s) and their jab(s). For the individual petitioners, the loss of constitutional freedoms ‘for even minimal periods of time . . . unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury’ (citations omitted).”

Since the court’s decision, all 27 lawsuits filed against the vaccine mandate have been consolidated and assigned to be heard by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

OSHA is asking the 6th Circuit to “dissolve the Fifth Circuit’s stay as soon as possible.”

“The Standard reflects OSHA’s judgment that these measures are necessary to mitigate COVID-19 transmission in the workplace, and the grievous harms the virus inflicts on workers,” OSHA told the court.

OSHA’s new request prompted The Daily Wire, and over a dozen other petitioners, to file their own response to OSHA’s request with the 6th Circuit.

The Daily Wire was the first organization to file a lawsuit against OSHA’s vaccine mandate and is being represented by Alliance Defending Freedom and the Dhillon Law Group.

“The government’s request is nothing short of extraordinary. It asks this Court, in an emergency posture, to summarily dispense with a sister circuit’s cogent and carefully calibrated stay orders,” The Daily Wire told the court.

“The government asks this Court to disregard the Fifth Circuit’s order, after it had the full and fair opportunity to submit not one, but two responses to the court on November 8, 2021 and on November 10, 2021. Needlessly rushing the Court to a decision in a compressed timeline is not the proper way to revisit a decision of a sister circuit, which has been entrusted to this Court’s care.”

Though Focus on the Family has not taken an official position on whether someone should receive a COVID-19 vaccine, Focus President Jim Daly told Focus employees following the enactment of OSHA’s mandate, “As a ministry, we have deep concerns with what has been reported regarding this proposed policy.”

The 6th Circuit has consolidated all lawsuits into one: In re: OSHA Rule on COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing, 86 Fed. Reg. 61402, No. 21-7000.

Photo from Shutterstock.