I'm not sure the harm to the employee due to being unemployed has ever been an issue when considering labor law in the past, why should this be different?

In this context, it can be argued that the harm of being injured/killed outweighs the harm of being unemployed.

The maximum harm from the mandate is a person losing their job, and in most states (inc NY) that's a harm any employer can inflict for almost any reason or no reason at all.

The maximum harm from no mandate is that many people get infected by that individual who otherwise would not have, they infect others on an exponential basis, and people die.

To me, that's a pretty easy harm vs harm decision. I wonder what the same court would do with a surgeon who likes a drink before operating and refused to do stop. Presumably his right to a job would outweigh his patient's right to an X% lower chance of dying?!

I know it can't be that crazy. I must be missing some killer legal principle here (other than "fuck society"). And it's not the court's job but it would be very very helpful if they'd explain their reasoning a bit better. The ruling mostly reads like a mix of the argument from the winning side repeated and snippets from the losing side proceeded by "the court does not agree that" etc.

C'est la vie I guess. Thanks for your comment :)