A federal judge estimated Monday that health authorities have exceeded their prerogatives by imposing the mask on planes, trains or even buses.
The U.S. government announced Wednesday, April 20, that it would appeal against the court’s ruling that early this week will lift the mandatory wearing of masks on public transportation in the United States.
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The Justice Department said it wanted to wait for advice from the country’s main federal health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), before making a decision. The CDC finally asked him on Wednesday to appeal, as wearing the mandatory mask remained in transit.”necessary for public health” against Covid-19. “In light of the CDC’s assessment (…), the Justice Department has launched an appeals process”said a spokesman for the US Department, Anthony Coley.
This appeal comes two days after a federal judge ruled that health authorities exceeded their prerogatives by requiring the wearing of masks on transportation such as airplanes, trains or even buses. In the process, the country’s major airlines dropped the mask restriction, followed by the railroad’s Amtrak or VTC companies like Uber. Some officials later worried that the decision of a Florida-based magistrate, if not addressed, would lead to curtailment of the CDC’s authority going forward.
violent passengers
But the US government’s appeal could complicate the situation and potentially create tensions for travelers if the mask-wearing requirement was finally reinstated when it was already difficult to respect. Wearing a mask is a very sensitive topic, especially for flight attendants, who have faced the unwillingness of many passengers over the past two years, some of whom have turned violent. The agency responsible for air transportation safety in the United States, the FAA, has still reported 744 incidents related to the mask since the beginning of the year.
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“The CDC believes that at this time an order requiring the wearing of masks indoors on transportation remains necessary for public health”they wrote in a press release. “As we said, wearing a mask is especially beneficial in very crowded and poorly ventilated places”, they added. The health service said it would continue to assess the health situation to determine whether such an obligation remains necessary in the future. She had decided last week to extend the obligation to wear a face mask on public transport until May 3.
The United States is now seeing another increase in daily Covid-19 cases linked to the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.
