Wyoming governor says state will fight vaccine mandate - East Idaho News
Wyoming

Wyoming governor says state will fight vaccine mandate

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CASPER, Wyoming (AP) — Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon said Thursday that he has asked the state’s attorney general to be prepared to challenge President Joe Biden’s new COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which he called an “egregious example of big government overreach.”

“I have asked the Attorney General to stand prepared to take all actions to oppose this administration’s unconstitutional overreach of executive power. It has no place in America. Not now, and not ever,” Gordon said in a statement on the mandate, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.

Gordon and his wife are both vaccinated, which he has talked about, but he has stressed that vaccination is an “intensely personal” decision.

While he issued a statewide mask mandate during the winter COVID-19 surge, Gordon has vowed not to issue any vaccine mandates. Earlier this year, he issued an executive order barring state agencies or facilities from requiring “vaccine passports.”

It’s not clear how Biden’s mandate could impact a draft bill aimed at prohibiting businesses from requiring vaccinations. It requires employers to make “reasonable accommodations” for unvaccinated workers like those included in the Americans with Disabilities Act.

About 36% of the state is fully vaccinated. Hospitalizations and active cases in Wyoming are near where they were during the winter peak of the disease.

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