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The challenge to President Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandates as issued through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will be heard in this courtroom.

This is the courtroom of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, Ohio, which won by lottery the right to decide the challenges to the mandates.  Alas, the Sixth Court of Appeals has a conservative majority, fortified by Trump appointees.  Legal experts are already leaving the OSHA mandates for dead because of that.  The plaintiffs charge that the mandates are too broad and unworkable and fail to take differences between workplaces into account - an argument sure to please many a right-wing judge.  Others say it will certainly go to the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority has, like that on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, been fortified by Trump appointees - Trump appointed more Supreme Court justices than any other President since Reagan.  This is all happening as another wave of COVID infections is taking shape - much to the indifference of the businesses and the Republican-led states that initiated this challenge.

Before you throw up your hands and declare that the vaccine mandate is doomed and that COVID is going to infect the large minority - about 41 percent - of Americans who have not been and will not be vaccinated an prolong the pandemic until the end of time,  just bear a few things in mind.  First, COVID cases, as previously noted, are rising again, and the pretext of the suits was the fact that cases were declining . . . that is, until recently.  That ought to give the Sixth Circuit judges some pause.  Second, the Supreme Court has already rejected three challenges to vaccine mandates, so if President Biden does have to appeal to the Supreme Court, his chances there are better than in the Sixth Circuit.  Third, there are other lawsuits pending against the OSHA mandates  - from labor unions who think the mandates don't go far enough and want to expand them to include smaller businesses.  Most of them are suing in the more liberal Second Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New York City. 

There's still a chance that the mandates will survive court challenges, and if they don't, the Biden administration is likely to craft new ones to satisfy the complaints against the old ones.  It may be working on them already.