The OSHA Vaccine Mandate: Legal, Practical, and Economic Considerations

OSHA asserts—mistakenly in our view—that the mandate would save 6,830 lives over a six-month period.57 “These are the lives that are saved,” the agency asserts, “because of the ETS, or to put another [sic] another way, the lives that would be lost but for the ETS.”58 The agency has not substanti- ated that claim. [...] What Are the Large-Scale Benefits and Costs of the OSHA Vaccination Mandate—viz., the Effects on National Economic Welfare? OSHA could have lessened some of the deficiencies in its estimate of the ETS’s direct costs and benefits by soliciting public comment. [...] Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to enjoin the OSHA ETS.93 The lawsuit alleges that the ETS would inflict “immediate irreparable harm of losing employees, incurring substantial and unrecoverable compli- ance costs, and worsening already fragile supply chains and labor markets.”94 OSHA has not included an assessment of the systemic economic effects of the ETS. [...] What seems likely is that OSHA has overlooked the broader economic implications of the ETS, including its potential to worsen the acute labor shortage, the supply chain crisis, and the emergence of inflation. [...] These considerations range from the constitutional to the med- ical, from the economic to the epidemiological, from the theoretical to the practical.