New York’s attorney general this week asked a federal appeals court to overturn an order that’s blocking the state’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers. U.S. District Judge David Hurd, a Clinton nominee, blocked the statewide mandate last week, ruling that the state officials named as defendants did not adequately explain why workers were denied religious exemptions. The order in its original form said both medical and religious exemptions would be granted but the Public Health and Health Planning Council’s adoption removed the latter form in its emergency rule that superseded a previous vaccination mandate. “This intentional change in language is the kind of ‘religious gerrymander’ that triggers heightened scrutiny,” Hurd wrote, granting a request from plaintiffs, 17 health care workers who sued over the order, to impose a preliminary injunction against it. But New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, argued in the new filing that the …