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President Joe Biden was forced to come to terms with his humiliating loss in the Supreme Court on Tuesday when his administration formally buried its highly controversial vaccine rule for private businesses with at least 100 employees.  

The president's mandate faced political and legal opposition almost immediately after he announced it last fall in a desperate bid to raise the U.S. vaccination rate that plateaued over the summer.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is now withdrawing the rule, which required large employers to either implement a COVID vaccine requirement or force workers to submit to weekly virus testing, which it formally issued after Biden's order on November 5 of last year. 

The withdrawal is effective January 26, 2022.

Meanwhile Biden faced another blow to his public image this morning when a dire new Gallup poll showed a majority of American voters do not think he's a strong leader who can get the country through a crisis. 

His approval rating also hit 39 percent on Tuesday, a new low in Harvard/CAPS Harris' polling since they began tracking Biden's support in office in March of last year. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said in the federal register that while it was withdrawing the emergency temporary standard, the rule would remain as a proposal for a permanent requirement.

'OSHA strongly encourages vaccination of workers against the continuing dangers posed by COVID-19 in the workplace,' the agency's statement added.

The coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 850,000 in the United States and the outbreak continues to weigh on the country's economy. 

Biden unveiled in September several regulations aimed at increasing the U.S. adult vaccination rate, which currently stands at about 74 per cent, according to U.S. government data.

Among the most shocking was instructing Labor to issue an order through OSHA to mandate that private companies track their employees vaccination status or face fines and penalties from the government. Many were perplexed when Biden announced the initiative after he claimed several times that the administration would not enforce vaccination mandates on private businesses. 

The proposed vaccine mandates immediately sparked legal challenges by conservative organizations, Republicans and several business groups claiming there were too many challenges to overcome with implementing such a rule.

'As small businesses try to recover after almost two years of significant business disruptions, the last thing they need is a mandate that would cause more business challenges,' National Federation of Independent Business executive director Karen Harned said.

The Republican National Committee lauded the 'major victory' with the reversal, calling the proposed rule 'authoritarian'  

The withdrawal from the mandate, however, will allow cities and states to continue enforcing their own COVID-based rules. 

Biden has continuously urged for separate businesses and states to implement voluntary vaccine measures for employees and customers.

'The Court has ruled that my administration cannot use the authority granted to it by Congress to require this measure, but that does not stop me from using my voice as President to advocate for employers to do the right thing to protect Americans' health and economy,' he said.   

'Hardworking Americans should not be forced to choose between being vaccinated and providing for their families,' RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a Tuesday statement. 'The Biden administration may have surrendered in their attempt to force their 'emergency' vaccine mandate, but the fight is not over.'

'The Republican National Committee's legal team will continue to protect workers and businesses from Joe Biden's authoritarian overreach.' 

The OSHA mandate for businesses with at least 100 employees was blocked by the Supreme Court earlier this month, although at the same time the court allowed a separate federal vaccine requirement for workers specifically working in healthcare facilities.

A third major vaccine rule from the Biden administration required federal government contractors to get their employees vaccinated. That was blocked by a federal judge in December and last week a U.S. judge blocked a vaccine requirement for federal employees.  

Certain organizations have implemented their own mandates for employees including CVSHealth, McDonald's, Tyson Foods and Uber.

According to Upcity, 81 percent of employers require masks to be worn in the office with 83 percent asking for proof of vaccination.  

However, other companies such as Starbucks and General Electric have complied with the court's recent ruling by abandoning their vaccine and testing requirements.

Starbucks, which has 90 percent of its employees currently vaccinated, said that they still encourage vaccinations and booster shots.

US cities, including NYC, have implemented their own COVID-related measures for businesses which require proof of vaccination before entering an establishment.

NYC was the first city to announce the mandate over the summer with other cities such as San Francisco and New Orleans following in its path.

In terms of statewide COVID measures, the US currently has 11 states implementing a mask mandate for indoor and public spaces with some requiring its use regardless of vaccination status. 

Earlier in the pandemic, many US states required the use of a mask in indoor public spaces with many bringing the mandate back due to the surge in cases as a result of new variants including Delta and Omicron.  

While courts have generally found the administration lacked the authority to require vaccination, mandates imposed by businesses, states and local governments have been upheld. 

Before withdrawing the rule, many companies had already implemented vaccination-or-testing requirements to get ahead of the mandate, which was set to go into effect earlier this month before the court struck it down.

It would have impacted more than 80 million U.S. workers.

The rule, as it was written by OSHA, required business with 100 or more employees to obtain proof from their workers that they were fully vaccinated – meaning it had been two weeks past when they received their second or first jab, depending on which vaccine they received.

Pfizer and Moderna require two shots a few weeks apart while Johnson & Johnson only requires one jab. The three COVID-19 vaccinations are the only ones allowed to be administered in the U.S. under emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.

If employees cannot or choose not to show proof of vaccination, the business would then need to require the worker to submit proof of a negative COVID test at least weekly and mask up in the workplace.

It wasn't immediately clear, but it seemed that the testing would be at the expense of the employee and not the business or government.   

The mandate would have affected certain organizations regardless of size including nursing homes, hospitals, and businesses that house Head Start Programs. 

The mandate would also have accounted for all employees working at their specific organization unless they were working remotely or outdoors. 

However, exemptions would have been granted based on medical grounds or had an accommodation under federal civil rights law.

As part of this, all cities and states would have been preempted to undergo this new mandate despite their current standing on vaccines and masks.

A violation of the mandate would have cost up to $13,653 for each with repeated offenses racking up to $136,532 per infraction.  

About half of the states in the country opposed the order with several officials threatening to fight back such as Indiana and Texas who vowed to organize a lawsuit in response.  

Covid continues to retreat across the US as cases slump 5% in a fortnight and ZERO states experience fortnightly doubling of infections   

Covid appears to be continuing its retreat from the United States, with cases now down five percent nationwide over the past two weeks. The latest figures also show that, for the first time this year, no US states are seeing cases double or grow by a larger proportion in recent weeks for the first time this year. 

The U.S. is now averaging 723,820 cases per day. Health experts have speculated that Omicron would peak soon, with Dr Anthony Fauci saying Sunday it was likely all US states would hit their peak by mid-February at the latest. The rapid transmission of the variant caused cases to skyrocket, but also made sure it quickly ran out of people to infect. Data from abroad, and specifically the UK and South Africa, showed that the variant peaks quickly, then falls quickly, once it take hold.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. was recording 766,939 cases per day. Last week's totals are skewed by the Martin Luther King Jr day holiday, and lagged reporting of cases throughout the week caused lower case numbers early in the week. But state-by-state charts do show many states' infection rates are consistently trending downwards.

The tri-state area - New York, New Jersey and Connecticut - became America's initial Omicron epicenter in December, but infection rates there have since gone into freefall, suggesting that predictions the variant would burn itself out quickly were correct.  

Despite the slowing of cases, deaths remain on the rise. The U.S. is averaging 2,122 new daily Covid deaths, up 30 percent over the past two weeks. Deaths often lag behind case by around two weeks, sparking hopes that fatality rates could also start to plunge in the same way infections have very soon. It appears that cases peaked at 806,364 per day on January 15, meaning it is likely deaths peak in the coming days as well.

Dropping cases nationwide is also being reflected in state-by-state Covid figures. According to official data, not a single state in the U.S. has had its new daily cases double over the past two weeks. Only two weeks ago, every single state in the country had experienced cases jumping by more than 100 percent.

States that were hit the earliest by the Omicron variant are seeing the sharpest decline as well. New York and New Jersey - the neighboring states that quickly suffered massive surges last month - are both recording two-week daily case declines of nearly 70 percent as the virus appears to subside.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) made a bizarre move on Tuesday despite rising cases, halting the use of monoclonal antibody treatments developed by major pharmaceutical companies like Regeneron and Eli Lilly. 

The agency notes the apparent lack of effectiveness these drugs have against the Omicron variant as the reason for the decision, even though Delta remains prevalent in the US, and responds well to the monoclonal drugs. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said earlier this month that Omicron was not causing many deaths in the U.S., and instead the lingering cases of the Delta variant were causing the most harm to Americans.

In the time since, the Omicron variant has almost totally overtaken Delta - accounting for more than 99 percent of active cases in the U.S. per CDC data.

Monoclonal antibody drugs are highly effective against the Delta variant, and the main downside of using them is their expense and the high number of medical resources needed to distribute them.  

Now, recently approved antiviral pills like Pfizer's Paxlovid and Merck's molnupiravir will likely take over as the main treatments for people after they have been infected with Covid. 

The Covid vaccines are also effective at preventing infection all together - especially if a person is boosted as well - and vaccinated people generally have much more mild symptoms after infection.

Official CDC data reports that 75 percent of Americans have received at least one shot of a Covid vaccine, 63 percent are fully vaccinated. Just over 25 percent of Americans have received a Covid booster shot.

In the UK, daily Covid cases have begun to steady after massive falls in recent weeks. The nation was one of the hardest struck by the Omicron variant last month, with cases surging as high as 180,000 per day on average. Cases quickly plummeted after peaking in early January.

South Africa, the first nation to suffer a massive surge of cases late last year after discovering the new variant in late November, has seen a rapid decline in cases over recent weeks as well. Cases peaked at over 23,437 new cases per day in mid-December, and are down to 3,110 as on Monday. 

While U.S. appears to be beyond its peak of Covid cases, its trend downwards may not be as rapid nationwide as it is in some of its peer nations. America is a much larger country than others, and its not very densely populated. There are also long distances between individual population centers, meaning some areas will see COVID spikes much later than others. 

This means that while cases will rapidly decline in individual areas, like they did in the UK and South Africa, the nationwide trends will not be as dramatic.

Omicron's surge has a clear westward trajectory, and has also seemed to move beyond the Mississippi river and into the Great Frontier. 

Numbers may not appear to be dropping as dramatically in the U.S. as it did in other countries, but that is more the case of a clear east-west divide rather than the variant acting differently in America than it did elsewhere.

Only one state east of the Mississippi river is recording more than an 85 percent increase in cases over the past two weeks, Kentucky. 

Every other state in the eastern portion of the nation is either reporting declining cases or smaller increases.

Twenty states are currently recording either a decline in cases over the past two weeks, or a flat zero increase. Only three are west of the Mississippi river, with Louisiana - down 28 percent - being along the river itself.

From Maine to Florida, nearly every state along the east coast is recording a decline in cases. New York and New Jersey are recording 68 percent and 69 percent decline respectively - a similar to drop to what England experienced after reaching its peak.

Other states along the coast like Pennsylvania (45 percent), Massachusetts (44 percent) and Florida (43 percent) are also reporting massive case declines over the past two weeks.

Even states out west that are experiencing rising cases are seeing the rate of daily infection increases at a lower level.

States like Montana and Wyoming that were experiencing near 200 percent increases in cases last week have seen two-week case growth fall to around 65 percent each. North Dakota - also recording near 200 percent jumps last week - is the leader in national case increases at 96 percent. 

Rhode Island's long time lead as the U.S. leader in daily infection rates has finally ended, and the state has seen a rapid decline from more than 500 or every 100,000 people testing positive daily down to 260. The Ocean state has exited the top ten U.S. states in infection rate.

Kansas is now the national leader in infection rate, with 365 of every 100,000 residents testing positive for Covid everyday. The Wheat state leads a group of seven that are averaging more than 300 daily infections out of every 100,000 residents.

Three eastern states still remain among the leaders in infection rate, as some parts of the region are still at their peak of cases, or are still at the start of post-peak decline. Kentucky is recording 334 new cases per every 100,000 residents, South Carolina is logging 312, and North Carolina is at 302.

Maine (56 infections per 100,000 residents) and Maryland (76) are still the only states recording less than 100 cases per 100,000 residents, as many states still have a long way to go until cases get back to controlled levels.

Ohio is still the national leader in mortality rate, recording 1.3 deaths per every 100,000 residents every day. The Buckeye state is among eight state that are recording more than one death for every 100,000 residents every day.

The group includes some states that are recording massive declines in cases like New Jersey (1.09 deaths per 100,000 residents), New York (1.06) and Maryland (1.04), further showing how deaths can lag a few weeks behind cases.

Across the pond, the UK has seen new daily cases settle at around 90,000 per day - with the nation adding 88,447 new cases to the ledger on Monday. It is a far fall from the case peak at around 180,000 cases per day earlier this month and a surge that once looked devastating has quickly been controlled.

London, like New York City, has proved to be the national pandemic hotspot in England. The city in the southwestern region of the nation was slammed early and hard by the Omicron variant, with cases skyrocketing so quickly some feared the region would have to reenter lockdowns.

Cases in London quickly began to decline, though, and the new restrictions and overwhelming of hospitals that some experts predicted never materialized. The virus started to move northward and eastward afterwards, though, with cases declining in London and other nearby neighborhoods while the virus surged elsewhere.

Nearly every region of the UK is experiencing case declines now, though, as it appears that the Omicron variant has run its course in the country. Only a month ago, some experts feared the nation's healthcare system would be overrun, but now its fortunes have totally reversed and the leaders are even beginning the transition to post-pandemic life.

Last week, mandates put in place to combat Omicron, like work from home orders, mask mandates, vaccine checks for certain events and capacity restrictions were lifted. Requirements for travelers into the nation to test upon arrival were lifted Monday as well.