we re following mandates and mask mandates. pete williams is our justice correspondent. kara lee is at the white house. dr. david michaels served as the head of osha under president obama. pete, let me start with you. there were about three hours and 40 minutes of arguments today in front of the supreme court. there were a couple of interesting moments. i want to play one for you now. i would think that workplace risk is about the greatest, least controllable risk with respect to covid that any person has. of course, the risk arises at the workplace, but it s important to focus on the risk they re talking about. they re not talking about jobs where people do congregate in settings like that, that changes the nature of the risk. they say every single workplace
indoor space having to deal with each other for eight, ten hours, however many hours a day, i would think the workplace risk is about the greatest least controllable risk with respect to covid any person has. arthel: what you think about supreme court justice take on this? she s a tough question are and that is fair but i would also say justice barrett who responds, she said the mandate is limited to those workplaces, coast workplace where people are crowded together in close quarters, the mandate applies probably to thousands in our nation including landscaping companies and other companies where people aren t working together closely and combined indoor spaces, not a narrowly tailored mandate, it is brought.
say, but that s not the risk they say they re regulating. 61,411 of the federal register say the risk is you ll come into contact with individuals and the risk of encountering an individual is an ever present risk you face at home, at work, and everywhere else. it seems to me he s arguing that it is too broad. there could be a federal government mandate, say, sounds like for meat packing plants or for a certain amount of people that work in the same room. what do you make of that argument? well, this disease is airborne. there s a risk any time you re in a room rather than outside, and so it is a workplace risk. so it s not clear that there s a better fix. if you really want to eliminate the risk in the workplace, you do have to take broader measures. and the vaccine is the most effective measure that we have.