The Biden administration is still fighting in court for the right to reimpose mask mandates on airplanes and trains. In mid-April, a federal judge struck down the requirement nationwide, drawing an interesting response from Democrats -- the party of COVID safetyism. Some had already started shifting their stance, given a clear move in public opinion, within weeks of Gov. Glenn Youngkin's big policy victory on school masking. Others expressed outrage, responding as if America was still living through the spring of 2020. They thought they had public opinion on their side, but that was a dubious calculation that flipped upside down pretty quickly. The Biden administration voiced its disappointment and officially opposed the ruling, but emphasized that their primary concern was a question of principle over authority, as opposed to the science. Whatever their reasons, they are actively battling for the right to force masks back onto travelers' faces:
The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to overturn last month's court decision by a federal judge that declared the mandate requiring masks on airplanes and other public transportation unlawful. In a 48-page document filed in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Justice Department argues that the order issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in early 2021 "falls easily within the CDC's statutory authority." Last month, the Justice Department said that it would appeal U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle's decision to strike down the CDC's mask mandate for public transportation if the agency determines the mandate is still needed to protect public health. In her ruling, Mizelle argued that the mandate violates the Administrative Procedure Act because the agency failed to prove its decision regarding implementing the mandate...Transportation companies, such as Uber, Lyft and Amtrak; as well as Delta, Southwest and American Airlines made masks optional soon after the decision.
There was a bit of a 'hot potato' routine on this question within Team Biden at first, with elements of the administration deferring to the DOJ, which deferred to the CDC, which briefly contemplated -- then decided that yes, they wanted the power to reimpose the making requirement, so the DOJ moved forward with its appeal, and the White House supported the decision. On the key issue of whether "the mandate is still needed to protect public health," the question should be whether the mandate was ever needed to protect public health:
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Wait a second. The appropriate & logically sound way of handling this would be to ask "in the time the mask mandate was absent, did we see a huge uptick in transmission events linked to planes?" (Answer: no) https://t.co/HfEyjBqLui
— Liz Wolfe (@lizzywol) June 1, 2022
Despite people being cramped into metal cylinders for hours at a time, removing their masks to sip drinks and consume food along the way, commercial flights never emerged as a significant source of super-spreader events. Much of this has been credited to air filtration systems. As Wolfe notes, since masking became voluntary in these settings -- with most passengers opting out, in my experience, defying polling -- there has been no discernible increase in in-flight outbreaks. There have been such instances at various high-profile indoor gatherings, which continue to operate on a mask-optional basis. We've learned, on a massive scale, that forced masking of children in schools doesn't work, in terms of substantially mitigating the spread of COVID. We're learning that it doesn't work on airplanes. Even in some of the most mask-obsessed and -compliant societies, the Omicron wave did its thing. This week, the New York Times' David Leonhardt asked whether mask requirements have succeeded...at all:
The evidence suggests that broad mask mandates have not done much to reduce Covid caseloads over the past two years. Today, mask rules may do even less than in the past, given the contagiousness of current versions of the virus. And successful public health campaigns rarely involve a divisive fight over a measure unlikely to make a big difference...Masks reduce the spread of the Covid virus by preventing virus particles from traveling from one person’s nose or mouth into the air and infecting another person. Laboratory studies have repeatedly demonstrated the effect. Given this, you would think that communities where mask-wearing has been more common would have had many fewer Covid infections. But that hasn’t been the case. In U.S. cities where mask use has been more common, Covid has spread at a similar rate as in mask-resistant cities. Mask mandates in schools also seem to have done little to reduce the spread. Hong Kong, despite almost universal mask-wearing, recently endured one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks.
...The effect of vaccines on severe illness is blazingly obvious in the geographic data: Places with higher vaccination rates have suffered many fewer Covid deaths. The patterns are clear even though the world is a messy place, with many factors other than vaccines influencing Covid death rates. Yet when you look at the data on mask-wearing — both before vaccines were available and after, as well as both in the U.S. and abroad — you struggle to see any patterns...[The mandate] approach is not sustainable for years on end. Masks hinder communication, fog glasses and can be uncomfortable. There is a reason that children and airline passengers have broken out in applause when told they can take off their masks. In the current stage of the pandemic, there are less divisive measures that are more effective than mask mandates. Booster shots are widely available. A drug that can further protect the immunocompromised, known as Evusheld, is increasingly available. So are post-infection treatments, like Paxlovid, that make Covid less severe. (For young children, who are not yet eligible for the vaccine, Covid is overwhelmingly mild, similar in severity to the flu.)
The upshot: In theory, requiring masks could make a difference. In reality, that has just not been the case, especially as more contagious variants have become dominant. Leonhardt also included that final highlighted parenthetical because a lot people still need to hear it. Anti-data fanatics continue to demand child masking in schools, in spite of all the evidence, and they often use unvaccinated young children as a primary excuse to justify imposing harmful, anti-science superstitions upon them. I'll leave you with the Biden administration keeping its collective eye on the ball, per usual:
U.S. Dept of Health & Human Services announces new office of environmental justice | The Hill https://t.co/VeuQPJvQPI
— Marty Makary MD, MPH (@MartyMakary) June 1, 2022
Meanwhile...
I really can't emphasize enough how much harm we did by closing schools and restricting socialization among kids during the pandemic. The harms vs benefits aren't even remotely comparable. Worst public health decision of my lifetime. https://t.co/GhuxCiQjFv
— AG (@AGHamilton29) June 1, 2022
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