today, the united states supreme court weighed in on some of the biden administration s key strategies for combatting covid. policies that would affect more than 100 million americans, the court heard arguments today in two cases, one case challenging the biden administration s policy to require vaccine or testing in the workplace, in companies with more than 100 employees. the other one, over whether the administration can require health care workers at health facilities that accept any federal funding, which includes most hospitals to receive vaccines, both cases brought by republican state attorneys general, as well as some business owners. in one of the cases two of the republican attorneys arguing against the administration s policies were forced to appear virtually, because, you guessed it, they both tested positive for covid. throughout both cases, the liberal justices appeared to be shocked that officials would still be challenging these covid safety policies, and wondered how
osha director, who made the point that the way osha works, and anybody who works in a place that has that s governed by osha has those posters up either in the kaft or some central place, that is if there s a a hazard that you as an employer can prevent your workers from being exposed to, you have an obligation to do so. the way this mandate seemed to be phrased is that covid is a hazard, and you can take steps to prevent your employees from getting it, so you should do so. the former director seemed to think that that made it legally sound. what s happened to that? two things have happened. one, i think there was an argument being pressed today, that this isn t the same as sparks or flames or something in the workplace, this is something different, and so it can t be regulated as though it s something connected to a conveyor belt or a workplace to which justice sotomayor said
that s correct, ali. i think what we are really trying to do here is to compliment the efforts of the administration who, frankly, are spread very thin, just trying to do the day-to-day back and to t what should be the strategy and what should be the benchmarks. we have that luxury. so we came together to put together these different articles outlining what we think the future strategy should be moving forward and how to get there. the cdc under donald trump in the days the beginning days of covid. i am trying to say this on television without swearing or something. it was a mess. a messaging nightmare. it was the height of inconsistency. at this point i would say that some people would say messaging from the cdc and federal government seems laggy and sometimes confused. what is is the problem, and how do you fix it?
hospitalizations and deaths and getting things down to a level where health care systems can cope with the number of cases. we know that if we can control the numbers we will be able to manage patients more effectively. doctor gowdner, we are out of time. but we will do this again. thank you for being with us again. a clinical assistant professor at the nyu school of medicine and a former member of the biden-harris covid advisory board. up next, something that happened in arizona this week caught us by surprise. that s next. arizona this week s by surprise. that s next. e you tired of cleas that just don t smell clean? what if your clothes could stay fresh for weeks? now they can. downy unstopables in-wash scent boosters keep your laundry smelling fresh waaaay longer than detergent alone. pour a cap of downy unstopables into your washing machine before each load.
the administration are in covid. a lot of people were hoping to turn the clock back until november 2019. i think many in the public wanted to go back in time. the reality is that we are going to have to live with covid. but i think the key is how do we live, how do we control the disease, the hospitalizations and the deaths here. unfortunately, because of the nature of the virus and especially with omicron you have such a short period from the time of exposure to the time that the infection takes off. this is not an infectious you can eliminate or eradicate and you are not even going to be able to prevent all infections and transmission. really the goal is going back to what we were saying in the summer of 2020, flattening the curve, reducing the number of severe cases and