“Finally,” exclaims a passenger aboard a Delta plane just after the pilot announced mid-flight the lifting “with immediate effect” of the obligation to wear a mask, as seen in a video posted on Twitter. The rest celebrate with a round of applause.
Washington had decided last week to extend the obligation to wear a mask on public transport until at least May 3. But a federal judge on Monday found that the health authorities were exceeding their duties and annulled the measure, prompting the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to lift the obligation.
The same night, the major airlines — which have mostly mandated wearing masks since the spring of 2020 — changed their rules, and the rail company Amtrak followed suit. While Uber and its competitor Lyft did the same on Tuesday morning.
New York’s transportation authority stood firm and will continue to require face masks on the city’s subways and buses, a spokesman said. But in Washington, the subway and bus system lifted the measure.
Given the decline of covid-19, the progress of vaccination and the accumulated fatigue of the population, the US authorities have been easing the slogans in recent months. But it was still necessary to cover your face on public transport.
– “Irresponsibility” –
The change could however be short-lived. The Justice Department announced Tuesday night that it would appeal the judge’s decision if the health authorities consider that the obligation to wear the mask should remain in force.
The administration “continues to believe that the obligation to wear face masks on transportation is a good use of the authority that Congress gave to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, NDLR) to protect public health,” he said in a statement. a statement.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki had called the judge’s decision “disappointing.”
And others are also not satisfied with the sudden change.
Tatiana Prowell, an oncology professor at Johns Hopkins Health Center, said on Twitter she had received numerous messages from immunosuppressed people with cancer concerned about traveling on flights without masks.
“In addition to wearing N95 masks, I advise you to travel on less crowded days/hours if possible,” he wrote, describing the “irresponsibility” of airlines in authorizing mask removal on flights.
According to a YouGov poll conducted among 7,802 adults on April 18, just before the judge’s decision, 63% of those interviewed supported the obligation to wear a mask on public transport.
The flight crews association-CWA did not take a position on the matter, because its members are divided, as highlighted by the union’s president, Sara Nelson, on the CNBC channel on Tuesday.
The obligation to wear a mask has been a very sensitive issue throughout the pandemic, and it has been especially contentious on planes, where airline staff have had to face the reluctance of many passengers, some even violent. The agency in charge of the security of air transport in the United States, the FAA, registered 744 incidents related to the use of masks since the beginning of the year.
“There is absolutely a sigh of relief from our teams, but there are also people who are really concerned,” Nelson summed up.
All transport organizations stressed that everyone is free to continue wearing a mask, particularly in cases of personal risk or when there is a high level of contagion of covid-19 in the region.
“We know that each person is more or less comfortable” with the new slogans, Lyft said in a message. Both drivers and passengers can “cancel any journey they do not wish to make.”
The entrance The end of the mandatory mask raises applause and annoyance in the US was first published in diary TODAY.
