ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The reason that masks are now optional in many airports, subways and buses has to do with a law passed in 1944. It's called the Public Health Service Act. It authorizes federal health agencies to make and enforce measures to prevent the spread of disease, and that's what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was trying to do by mandating masks on public transportation during the COVID pandemic before a federal judge declared it an overreach of CDC authority based on her reading of the 1944 law. So what does that law actually say?
Lawrence Gostin is a professor of public health law at Georgetown, and he's here to explain. Welcome.
