Sheridan adds 35 cases as federal judge blocks mandated vaccinations of health care workers in Wyoming and nine other states

Over the weekend, Sheridan County added 22 lab confirmed cases of COVID-19 to the 4,408 lab confirmed cases in the county since the beginning of the pandemic. 

Thirteen more probable cases have occurred bringing the number to 1,360 probable cases in the county since the beginning of the pandemic. 

There are currently 92 active cases in the Sheridan County community.  According to COVID-19 Public Information Officer Jennifer Graves, 43 cases have recovered since Friday. 

Fifty-five Sheridan County residents have lost their lives to the coronavirus and there are currently eight hospitalized in Sheridan County battling the virus. 

The Associated Press reports that a federal judge on Monday blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from enforcing a coronavirus vaccine mandate on thousands of health care workers in 10 states that had brought the first legal challenge against the requirement.

The court order, found here, said that the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid had no clear authority from Congress to enact the vaccine mandate for providers participating in the two government health care programs for the elderly, disabled and poor.

The preliminary injunction by St. Louis-based U.S. District Judge Matthew Schelp applies to a coalition of suing states that includes Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming. Similar lawsuits also are pending in other states.

The federal rule requires COVID-19 vaccinations for more than 17 million workers nationwide in about 76,000 health care facilities and home health care providers that get funding from the government health programs. Workers are to receive their first dose by Dec. 6 and their second shot by Jan. 4.

While a vaccine requirement might make sense for long-term care facilities, Schelp wrote, CMS lacks evidence for imposing it on other health care providers and ignored evidence that the mandate could jeopardize understaffed facilities. The judge also said CMS improperly bypassed public notice and comment requirements when issuing the emergency rule, which “feeds into the very vaccine hesitancy CMS acknowledges is so daunting.”

According to the AP, officials at CMS had no immediate comment about the preliminary injunction. The Department of Justice, which defended the rule, declined to comment.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention list Sheridan County’s level of community transmission as HIGH.

More COVID-19 information is available at www.sheridancounty.com/covid-19/.