The U.S. Senate passed a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown late Thursday night after a Republican amendment to defund President Biden’s vaccine mandate narrowly failed on a 48-50 vote.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration rule that all businesses with 100 or more employees require workers to be vaccinated or be tested weekly for Covid-19 is currently suspended until consolidated challenges filed in more than half the states are decided.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ordered the suspension the day after the rule was published in response to immediate challenges filed by the state of Texas, private businesses and other entities.

Challenges to the OSHA rule have been filed in all 12 federal circuit appeals courts and the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati was selected by lottery to decide all of them in a consolidated process.

Similarly, a separate federal district court issued a preliminary injunction last Monday barring the enforcement of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services vaccine mandate for employees of hospitals that receive funding from those sources.

However, that order impacted only 10 states and CMS has yet to suspend enforcement elsewhere. Other challenges to the Medicare/Medicaid mandate, including one filed by the state of Oklahoma, are still pending.

The injunction does not stop individual hospital systems from imposing their own vaccine mandates for employees, which already are widely implemented.

The GOP amendment, which fell short of the simple majority required for passage, would have defunded Biden’s vaccine mandate for larger businesses, federal employees and contractors and the military.

Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) was among the 48 Republicans who voted for the amendment (two were not present and all 50 Democrats voted no).

“As courts across the country have ruled multiple times, government imposed vaccine mandates on private businesses are unconstitutional and wrong,” Inhofe said.

“I was proud to vote to defund the mandate, which would put over half a million Oklahoma workers at risk of losing their jobs over a personal medical decision.”

Senators voted 69-28 to pass a stopgap bill to fund the government through Feb. 18, legislation which also passed the House earlier in the evening and was expected to be signed by Biden sometime Friday.

The legislation, which passed the House earlier in the evening, now goes to Biden’s desk where he has until the end of Friday to sign it.

The failed defunding amendment is not the last of the efforts by GOP Senators to defeat the vaccine mandate. A separate Senate Bill, which all 50 Senate Republicans have signed on to, may yet reach the Senate floor.