The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order Friday afternoon requiring U.S. travelers to wear face masks at transportation hubs, planes and all forms of public transportation. The order takes effect late Monday, one minute before midnight.
“People should wear masks that completely cover their mouth and nose while they are waiting, boarding, disembarking or traveling in planes, boats, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis and carpools as they travel inland, inland. or outside the United States and the territories of the United States, ”the CDC says.
Masks are also required at airports, bus and ferry terminals, seaports and train and subway stations, according to the federal agency.
There are some exceptions. Children under the age of 2 are not required to wear masks, nor are people who are unable to wear a mask safely due to a disability. Also: Facial masks can be removed while eating, drinking, or taking medication. You also don’t need a mask when communicating with a person with a hearing disability and who needs to see a person’s mouth to communicate.
The CDC says it reserves the right to enforce the order through criminal sanctions, but “has no intention” of relying on it primarily. Instead, it encourages and anticipates widespread voluntary compliance, as well as the support of other federal agencies in implementing additional civilian measures that implement the provisions “of their order,” to the extent permitted by law and according to “a executive order signed by President Joe Biden last Thursday.
Biden’s executive order specified that travelers should wear masks at airports and commercial aircraft, trains, public ships and intercity buses, as part of the White House’s effort to combat the spread of COVID-19. It orders heads of departments and executive agencies to “act immediately” to demand that masks be worn in accordance with CDC guidelines, as permitted by law and “appropriate.”
All U.S. airlines have already set their own mandatory mask requirements for passengers and have banned more than 2,700 passengers for violating mask policies and other disruptive behaviors since May. Mr Biden’s executive order, however, received praise from an organization representing flight attendants, who have complained about the difficulty in ensuring passengers wear masks.
The executive order “will provide much-needed backup for flight attendants and front-line aviation workers,” said Sara Nelson, president of the Flight Assistants Association-CWA, which represents the flight attendants from 17 airlines. “Masks are vital to the health of everyone on board and are an especially necessary safety measure in our workspace where proper social distancing is not an option.”
Since the outbreak of the pandemic last year, more than 25.9 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported across the United States and 436,000 people have died from the virus nationwide, according to a Johns Hopkins University count.
Now the country faces a new challenge: new variants of the virus. The researchers believe that variants from the UK, South Africa and Brazil can spread more easily than the original strain.
The variant first identified in the UK has now been found in 29 U.S. states, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Highly contagious variants have also been found for the first time in South Africa and Brazil.
“We will continue to see the evolution of the mutants,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, said Friday in a briefing on coronavirus.
Collaborators: Kathryn Krupnick and Audrey McNamara