“Effective immediately, employees and customers may choose whether they’d like to wear a mask,” a Southwest Airlines pilot announced jubilantly, mid-air.Passengers on the flight from Nashville to Charlotte, in the United States, responded by applauding, cheering, and eagerly removing their masks, as if after years of solitary confinement, the pilot had just opened the cell door. It was a scene replicated across the US as airports, airlines, transit authorities and private hire companies like Uber informed their staff and customers that masking was no longer necessary. One airport even blared the song “We Are the Champions” on repeat as unmasked customers milled around, enjoying their “freedom”.The sudden announcements came in response to Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle’s decision that the US government could not require people to mask while on public transportation. In her 59-page decision, Mizelle – who was appointed by former Republican President Donald Trump – waxed lyrical on the minutiae of dictionary entries from the 1940s. She held that a law that enabled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to enforce “sanitation” and “other measures” in order to “prevent the … spread of communicable diseases”, did not allow the CDC to mandate mask use on public transportation to limit the spread of COVID-19.
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