Travelers across the United States got some welcome news this week.
A judge decided that it was time for an ongoing mask mandate for airline passengers to come to an end.
Of course, the Biden administration has vowed to fight the ruling as long as public health officials are on board.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that it would be studying the issue further.
According to Reuters:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to whom the administration was deferring, said that it would continue to study whether the mandates were still needed. The mandates apply to planes, trains and other public transportation and, prior to Monday’s ruling, had been due to expire on May 3.
“We will continue to assess the need for a mask requirement in those settings, based on several factors, including the U.S. COVID-19 community levels, risk of circulating and novel variants, and trends in cases and disease severity,” a CDC spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.
Plenty of Americans were clearly overjoyed by the freedom to take off their masks aboard a commercial flight.
Pilot announces an end to Biden’s Mask Mandate, the reaction from everyone on the plane says it all.
This is awesome 🇺🇸
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 19, 2022
I have never been so excited to get on a plane ✈️ before. NO MASK BABY. pic.twitter.com/3ouKXXjAF2
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) April 19, 2022
RT if you think wearing a mask on a plane is dumb.
— House Judiciary GOP 🇺🇸 (@JudiciaryGOP) April 13, 2022
Of course, not everyone agreed.
Many people declared that they were planning to continue wearing a mask on planes.
Others denounced the judge’s decision as one that could lead to a spike in COVID-19 rates and associated deaths.
For her part, conservative pundit Candace Owens shared a harsh assessment of those who were upset by the end of the mask mandate.
During a recent Fox News Channel appearance, she maligned the “sick” citizens and power-hungry politicians who want to keep the requirement in place.
This was not the first time Owens had put the CDC in her sights, as Newsweek reported last year.
Conservative commentator Candace Owens has said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should be shut down because the agency is studying gun violence for the first time in more than two decades.
Owens took to Twitter on Wednesday to share a post highlighting an NPR report about the CDC’s plans.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky called gun violence a “serious public health threat” in an interview with CNN on Wednesday, saying it was “pedal to the metal time” on the issue.
Owens tweeted: “The CDC needs to be shut down. There is no other way to say it.”
Do you think it was appropriate to end the mask mandate for commercial air travel?
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