Americans could scarcely be blamed for feeling confused about whether or not to wear a mask right now. A week ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention extended into May a nationwide mask mandate for travel on airplanes, trains, buses and other forms of public transportation. Then on Monday, a federal judge in Florida struck it down.
Meanwhile, some local governments and private employers are reasserting mask mandates in response to rising COVID-19 transmission rates because of virus variants. In Baltimore, that includes Johns Hopkins University, where earlier this month, school officials reinstituted a mask requirement in common areas, in addition to an existing requirement in classrooms, in response to a spike in cases. And in Philadelphia, a mask mandate went into effect Monday that extends to all public indoor spaces — except on public transit because of Florida Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s recent ruling. That means transit workers in the City of Brotherly Love don’t have to wear masks in vehicles or stations, no matter how tightly packed, but if they walk into their office, eat at a restaurant or shop in a store, no matter how empty, they have to put one on.
Historians will one day look back at the COVID pandemic and devote whole chapters to this nation’s love-hate relationship with masks. Whatever uncertainty about what public health protections should be required at which stage of an outbreak, there’s simply no question that politics, disinformation and mixed messaging have made matters far worse than they needed to be.
