Plurality Agree Mask Mandates on Public Transportation Should Be Gone

A plurality agree mask mandates on public transportation should be gone, a Politico/Morning Consult survey released this week found.

The survey asked, “Even if none are exactly correct, which of the following comes closest to your opinion regarding mask mandates on federal transportation (such as airplanes, trains, buses, and subways)?”

It gave respondents five choices, and a plurality, 48 percent, indicated they are done with mask mandates on public transportation. Of those, 20 percent said “it is the right time to end the mask mandates on federal transportation,” 16 percent said mask mandates “should have already ended on federal transportation,” and 12 percent said “mask mandates should have never been in place on federal transportation.” 

Another 45 percent, however, said they believe it is “too early” to end the mask mandates, and eight percent expressed no opinion on the matter.

It comes over a week after United States District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump appointee, deemed President Joe Biden’s federal mask mandate illegal, concluding it “exceeded the CDC statutory authority, improperly invoked the good cause exception to notice and comment rulemaking, and failed to adequately explain its decisions.”

“Because our system does not permit agencies to act unlawfully even in the pursuit of desirable ends, the court declares unlawful and vacates the mask mandate,” she wrote, freeing millions of Americans from the burden of being forced to mask up on planes, trains, buses, and other modes of public transportation.

The Biden administration, however, did not welcome the news and is appealing the ruling with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)’s blessing.

“It is CDC’s continuing assessment that at this time an order requiring masking in the indoor transportation corridor remains necessary for the public health,” the federal health agency said in a statement last week.

“CDC will continue to monitor public health conditions to determine whether such an order remains necessary,” it added. “CDC believes this is a lawful order, well within CDC’s legal authority to protect public health.”

A Rasmussen Reports survey released last week found that most Americans, 51 percent, believe the judge’s ruling was a “good decision.”