Passengers on U.S. airlines and public transit will get their first chance in more than a year to travel without a mask next week, if the federal government sticks to its current plan to let a pandemic-era mandate expire.
President Joe Biden is being urged by transportation groups and state and local officials to allow the mask rule to end, after extending it for a month through April 18 as the omicron variant added to the nation’s Covid case count. In recent weeks, cases have started to tick up and some local governments, like in Philadelphia, reimposed indoor mask wearing.
White House and Transportation Security Administration officials are talking with their counterparts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on whether to revise or extend the mask rule. The decision will have implications for the nation’s economy, health-care system and millions of daily commuters.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s new Covid-19 response coordinator, said on NBC’s “Today” show Monday that the CDC will come out with a “scientific framework” to help decide whether to keep the mask requirement in place. “I think it is absolutely on the table” to extend the rule, Jha said.
“I’m hoping that the mask mandate will come off,” Janno Lieber, chair and chief executive officer of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the largest mass-transit provider in the U.S., said March 24. “Not because I have any status as an epidemiologist, but because mask mandates have come off in the rest of society.” There’s no longer a federal requirement for mask use in U.S. schools, restaurants, gyms and arenas.
Transit Demand
In a joint letter to Jha last week, groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the U.S. Travel Association pushed for an end to the mask requirement and the mandate for pre-departure testing for vaccinated passengers traveling to the U.S. The measures “no longer provide the public health benefits they once did,” it said. “Today, these measures are imposing significant costs on the traveling public, airline employees, and the American travel and tourism industries.”
Demand for transit across the U.S. is about 60% of pre-pandemic levels, according to the American Public Transit Association.
Some state and local transit officials, reluctant to anticipate the Biden administration decision, say they’re preparing to run their systems without enforcing the mask rule if that’s the guidance from the U.S. government. The list of such agencies include the Chicago Transit Authority, New Jersey Transit, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, operator of New York City’s three major airports.
The MTA and New Jersey Transit said they will inform customers of changes to the mask mandate through social media and push notifications, while eliminating signs and public address messages on mask requirements. Officials at Miami International Airport, and federally owned Reagan National and Dulles International airports, say they will follow TSA guidance.
In San Francisco, Bay Area Rapid Transit has no plans to institute its own mask mandate. BART plans increased messaging to customers on any changes, including an ad campaign about Merv 14 air filters installed on all train cars.