Maybe it’ll cut down on the number of absolute loonies on planes.
Or maybe cut down on the number of sensible health-conscious passengers who will be willing to poison themselves by air travel.
But all the better for the loonies to bellow out their gospel hymns in the aisles.
Are the airline companies still entitled to have and enforce mask mandates of their own (except in Florida)?
They certainly seem to be treating this as a fait accompli - most of the major airlines have already announced they’re dropping their mandates, as have Amtrak and my local bus company.
The mandate was going to end today anyway if not for the two-week extension that was announced last week, so this doesn’t feel likely to have a huge impact in the long run, and it won’t change my intent to keep masking up in public for the rest of my life.
This. The irresponsible anti-vaxxers of the death cult have largely won the day, leaving it to those of us who value our health to do what we can to save ourselves.
Better stock up on a lifetime supply of masks, because eventually they will go out of style and you won’t be able to get them anymore.
I’m glad I got our flights over with a few weeks ago. I think I’d have backed out of our trip if this craziness happened last month.
No surprise that the judge in question, Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, was appointed by the Orange Peril, and was deemed “not qualified” by the American Bar Association. She took it upon herself to opine on the medical efficacy of masks:
It might also have consequences for health conscious people’s future plans. Many people have been thinking “Flying is probably not the worst thing right now, there’s a mask mandate.” Now they have to take into consideration that the airlines could cancel the mandate while you are in the air and the pilot will tell the chin-masking doorknob licker in the seat next to you that he should take his mask off and scream “Yeah! Freedom!” in your face.
I have tickets to fly this weekend. I guess I’ll see how it goes.
Case numbers are now climbing in most states. Safe money is on another wave.
I’m flying tomorrow to the Domincan Republic. We’ll see if anything has changed yet. I personally don’t mind either way. I’m happy to wear the mask, but if others don’t have to, I’m not convinced it changes my odds all that much.
And yeah, things do seem to be picking up. I had to pick up my daughter from school today and the nurse told me they’ve had 6 positive COVID tests in the last 24 hours for a sample of … 300 kids?
As I posted in another thread, we were in the air when the airline dropped the mask mandate. The Flight Attendants announced it, and promptly removed their masks. About 75% of the passengers did likewise.
Uh, given their uses in non-pandemic times, I don’t see any circumstance in the future where major hardware stores won’t have N95s or equivalent?
Some passengers, who are immunocompromised, were on some such flights. Some passengers were traveling with children too young to be vaxxed. I saw several articles in which they complained of being trapped in the middle of a long flight with others around them taking their masks off. They are big hungus pissed!
Changing the rules mid-flight, where people don’t have the option of getting off is outrageous.
Lest there be any confusion whatsoever, the ruling on this case (available here if you want to read a completely result orientated decision) was a horrid decision. The gist of her “analysis” was that the word “sanitation” in the Public Health Services Act, which authorizes the CDC actions, does not include face coverings. It’s a … novel … reading that ignores judicial restraint, agency deference, legal precedence, the entire stated purpose of the Act itself, and reality.
It’s an indefensible ruling by an activist judge who negated a necessary rule on a nationwide basis. Luckily for her, the Biden administration doesn’t seem to concerned about fighting this battle on appeal (they haven’t asked for an injunction to stop enforcement of the ruling), and so we all get to pay the price. And not just now, but unless this ruling is overturned on appeal, it will cripple efforts in the future to control the next pandemic.
I suppose so, but it seems strange to me to put such faith in masks. They help reduce the risk, but I doubt by much (generally, and especially when they’re removed for eating and drinking by 95% of the passengers). If someone can’t risk getting covid, I would expect they’d refrain from flying, mask mandate or not.
Yeah, exactly. At best, it was security theater, and at worst it may have given people who genuinely shouldn’t have been flying a false sense that it was “safe.”
The airlines could certainly continue to enforce masks on their flights - they are private entities, and can basically do anything they like. But I can see why they would not: all the entitled maskholes who threw tantrums when it WAS federally-required will not comply willingly now that it’s not, and the airlines are rightly concerned with the dangers in dealing with such morons.
Of course, I imagine this will lead to somewhat of an uptick in cases.
We’re travelling by train in a couple of weeks. While Amtrak has also dropped its mandate, at least we won’t be 2 inches away from all the other passengers. We have sleeping accommodations on all the trip legs, so it’s even better - but I am disappointed that we will likely feel it’s unsafe to eat in the dining car, or sit in the observation car.
It’s a dining car, people take their masks off to eat and drink. I doubt you’d notice any difference. I doubt anyone thinks the brief time wearing a mask between the door and the table offers any meaningful protection.
The biggest area of confusion seems to be local public transport. Some systems say masks are no longer required, others say they are still mandatory. Even within the same metro area!