The Supreme Court shown Friday, Jan. 7, 2022, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Two state lawyers who downplayed the severity of the coronavirus’s record spread to the U.S. Supreme Court Friday gave remote arguments after both tested positive for COVID-19, according to Reuters.

The two lawyers, Ohio Solicitor General Benjamin Flowers and Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill, requested the Supreme Court block two of President Joe Biden’s biggest vaccine mandates: a federal vaccine-or-test mandate for large employers and a vaccine mandates for health care workers.

Flowers, arguing for Ohio against vaccine-or-test mandates for employers with 100 or more employees, delivered his arguments remotely Friday morning after testing positive on a PCR test Thursday.

“Ben, who is vaccinated and boosted, tested positive for COVID-19 after Christmas. His symptoms were exceptionally mild, and he has since fully recovered,” the Ohio Attorney General’s office told Reuters in a statement.

Murrill, arguing for Louisiana against vaccine mandates for health care workers, also delivered her arguments through the phone. Her office did not disclose details to Reuters other than the decision was “in accordance with COVID protocols.”

Flowers’ argument against large employer mandates centered on how the coronavirus is technically not a workplace danger since it exists both in and outside of the workplace. There is no documented proof that the coronavirus discriminates for or against places of work.

“I think part of the problems we’re seeing with this rule is it is not truly intended to regular a workplace danger,” Flowers argued. “It’s a danger we all face when we wake up in the morning.”

Murrill gave a more anti-vaccine argument against mandates for health care workers, saying the case is a matter of executive overreach over people’s bodies.

“[This case is] about whether [the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] has the power to force millions of people working for or with a Medicare or Medicaid provide to undergo an invasive, irrevocable, forced medical treatment, a COVID shot,” Murrill argued. “It’s a bureaucratic power move that is unprecedented.”

When Chief Justice John Roberts asked Murrill if she agreed with a lower court’s ruling that COVID-19 “no longer poses the dire emergency it once did,” Murrill dodged the question by saying the disease’s severity is “shifting sands” that can and have changed.

Elie Mystal, a justice correspondent for The Nation, called Murrill’s argument “one of the all time [sic] worst oral arguments I’ve ever heard or read” in a Twitter post.

The other lawyers arguing against Biden’s mandates argued in-person, although the Supreme Court is closed to the public for COVID-19 concerns. The U.S. is currently averaging over 611,000 new coronavirus cases a day, according to analysis by the Washington Post.