This article was originally published by Ethan Huff at Natural News. 

 On January 7, the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on two legal challenges to the Biden regime’s federal Wuhan coronavirus (Covid-19) “vaccine” mandates.

The one mandate is a “vaccine-or-test” order for workers at large employers while the other affects health care workers at facilities that receive federal funding.

The two cases came to SCOTUS on an emergency basis. The formal question in both disputes is this: Should the federal government be allowed to enforce these two mandates while litigation challenging them is still in progress?

It is expected that SCOTUS will decide whether or not to grant emergency relief based on the merits of the underlying challenges themselves.

The suits come after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a vaccine-or-test mandate on November 5. All employers with more than 100 employees were told that their employees must either be “fully vaccinated” or agree to regular and burdensome testing along with a mask mandate as a punishment for non-compliance.

Numerous legal challenges were filed against this particular mandate, including by business groups, religious groups, and various Republican-led states. If upheld by the Supreme Court, the mandate will impact all employees at any company with 100 or more employees, including private businesses.

According to reports, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit temporarily put the mandate on hold back in November. All of the related legal challenges were then consolidated by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, which just recently reinstated the mandate.

Biden (aka Obama) wants jabs in every arm

Following this reinstatement, the challengers quickly took their cases to the Supreme Court, filing more than a dozen separate requests asking the justices to block the 6th Circuit’s ruling.

Two of those requests will now be granted an oral argument on a highly expedited basis. One of them was filed by a group of trade associations while the other was filed by a group of states.

“The 6th Circuit’s ruling reviving the mandate will remain in force until the Supreme Court acts on the challengers’ request, although OSHA has indicated that it will not issue citations for failure to comply with the rule until Jan. 10 at the earliest,” reported Scotus Blog (citing an original article published at Howe on the Court).

The Biden regime also came to the Supreme Court demanding that it be allowed to temporarily enforce the mandate on health care workers at facilities that participate in Medicare and Medicaid. (RELATED: The Biden regime had earlier said it would back off on the mandate until after the holidays.)

As the puppet for Barack Hussein Obama’s third term, Biden has made it abundantly clear that he wants as many needles in as many arms as he can possibly get away with.

Not long after receiving the emergency requests, the Supreme Court set a deadline of December 30 for responses in both disputes. The Supreme Court’s decision to hear oral arguments was apparently a surprise to some.

“It seemed more likely that the court would dispose of the requests with a brief order, as it normally does on the so-called ‘shadow docket,’” reports explain.

“Instead, and perhaps in response to criticism of the increased use of the shadow docket to litigate major policy disputes, the justices fast-tracked the cases for oral argument, as they have already done twice this year when fielding requests for emergency relief in the battle over Texas’ controversial abortion law and a request by a Texas inmate to have his pastor touch him and pray out loud during his execution.”