If you are a migrant arrested while illegally crossing the southern border, our nation’s COVID emergency will be over May 23. But if you borrowed money to pay for college, then the COVID emergency is still on at least through August and almost assuredly through Election Day. And if you are a Democrat in Congress, the COVID emergency conveniently ended the weekend before President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
Confusing? Absolutely. Is there some scientific evidence that can harmonize all these decisions? Absolutely not.
So no one should be surprised that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Wednesday that it is extending the travel mask mandate through at least May 3. Asked by Andrea Mitchell why May 3 in particular, Biden’s chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said, “I would agree we really do need more time.”
How reassuring.
The official reason the CDC gave for extending the travel mask mandate yet again was that it needed more time to study the new BA.2 omicron subvariant, which is now responsible for the vast majority of cases in the United States. But if the past two years have taught us anything, it is that there will always be a new COVID variant to study. If the CDC is going to commit to keeping the travel mask mandates until every new COVID variant is fully studied, then it will never end.
Other countries around the world, such as Denmark and England, have lifted their air travel mask mandates. There is no evidence of a resulting COVID surge.
What little science there is on the subject shows that airborne disease transmission is not more likely on an airplane than it is indoors, where the CDC has already said masks are no longer needed. If anything, with all the fresh air brought into planes and all the filtering of recycled air, a plane is safer than the average building. The CDC has never presented any evidence to show that planes are riskier than an ordinary office building or restaurant.
Both the management and labor unions of the airline industry have asked the Biden administration to end its divisive, costly, and unnecessary mask mandate. But as in so many other areas, the Biden administration still refuses to listen.
If Biden still had to fly commercial, the travel mask mandate would have ended a long time ago.
