New York Health Care Workers Get Reprieve from COVID Vaccine Mandate as Judge Blocks It

[JohnSJ]

2. A little bacground

Page v. Cuomo: On August 11, 2020, Judge David Hurd, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Northern New York, dismissed a lawsuit challenging Governor Andrew Cuomo’s (D) executive order requiring travelers entering New York from states with high COVID-19 infection rates to self-quarantine. Arizona-resident Cynthia Page brought the suit after she was forced to cancel a planned trip to Brooklyn, New York, because she could not fulfill the quarantine requirements. In her complaint, Page argued that the mandatory quarantine violated her Fourteenth Amendment rights to equal protection and due process. Page also argued that the quarantine requirement violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause, which guarantees legal protections related to national citizenship, such as the right to interstate travel. Hurd rejected these arguments: "The state is not drawing a distinction between residents and non-residents but between individuals with and without a mathematically heightened risk of spreading COVID–19." He added that, even if the order "infringed her liberty interest in the right to travel, the COVID–19 pandemic is precisely the scenario for which emergency action would be expected." Page filed a notice of appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.[4][5][6]