The US government gave itself two days of reflection and consultation before announcing on Wednesday, April 20, that it would appeal the court decision that lifts the mandatory wearing of masks on public transport in the United States. The Justice Department had said it would wait for advice from the country’s main federal health agency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), before making a decision.
They said in a statement that they were “believes that, at this time, an order requiring the wearing of masks indoors in transport remains necessary for public health”† “As we said, wearing a mask is especially beneficial in very crowded and poorly ventilated places”they added to back their request to appeal.
This call comes aftera federal judge estimated on Monday that health authorities exceeded their prerogatives by requiring the wearing of a mask during transporte.g. in airplanes, trains or buses. In the process, the country’s major airlines dropped the mask restriction, followed by the railroad’s Amtrak or VTC companies, such as Uber.
Some officials later worried that the move by a Florida-based magistrate, if not addressed, would lead to curtailment of the CDC’s authority going forward.
Sensitive topic
The US government’s appeal could complicate the situation and potentially create tensions for travelers if the mask-wearing requirement is finally reinstated when it was already difficult to respect.
Wearing a mask is a very sensitive topic, especially for flight crews (stewards and flight attendants), who have had to deal with the unwillingness of many passengers over the past two years, some of them even turning 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.
The US Health Agency 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 at least 3 May.
The United States is now seeing another increase in daily Covid-19 cases linked to the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron.
