The US Senate on Wednesday voted against vaccine obligations imposed by Joe Biden, an initiative of the Republican camp that would likely remain ineffective because of the prospect of a presidential veto. All Republican senators, joined by two Democrats from conservative states, voted in favor of a text specifically aimed at the decree unveiled by the US president in September to protect employees of companies with more than 100 people from covid-19. Vaccination against is required.

This measure, currently blocked in court, caused outcry from part of the American population: in a country of individual liberty, central power is viewed with suspicion by conservatives. “President Biden’s absurd vaccination requirement is an abuse of power,” Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said on Thursday.

Like him, many Republicans are in favor of the vaccine but against its obligation. “Let it be clear, I am against any state-sponsored vaccination requirement on private companies,” Joe Manchin, the West Virginia candidate and one of the two Democrats who supported the initiative, said before the vote.

The text is unlikely to succeed: It still has to be validated in the House of Representatives, where Democrats are in a majority, before it reaches the desk of Joe Biden, who could then veto it.

In parallel to this standoff between government, justice and elected officials, cities have decided on their own scale to implement vaccination. New York’s mayor thus announced Monday that all private sector workers would soon be subject to mandatory vaccinations against the coronavirus, which has already killed more than 790,000 people in the United States.