The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed to be leaning on Friday toward blocking one of the White House’s main pandemic-fighting strategies, expressing skepticism that the Biden administration has the legal power to mandate that large employers require workers to be vaccinated or to undergo frequent testing.

The oral argument over that mandate, which rocketed to the court on an emergency basis after a flurry of legal challenges around the nation from Republican-led states, business groups and others, raised the prospect that the court might deal a severe blow to the Biden administration’s efforts to address the coronavirus as the highly transmissible Omicron variant continues to spread.

Companies hired at the fastest pace in 7 months in December ahead of escalating concerns over surging COVID cases, according to a report Wednesday from payroll processing firm ADP.

Private job growth totaled 807,000 for the month, well ahead of the Dow Jones estimate for 375,000 and the November gain of 505,000. The November total was revised lower from the initially reported 534,000.

As the raging omicron variant of COVID-19 infects workers across the nation, millions of those whose jobs don’t provide paid sick days are having to choose between their health and their paycheck.

While many companies instituted more robust sick leave policies at the beginning of the pandemic, some of those have since been scaled back with the rollout of the vaccines, even though omicron has managed to evade the shots. Meanwhile, the current labor shortage is adding to the pressure of workers having to decide whether to show up to their job sick if they can’t afford to stay home.