But DOJ appealing ruling that struck down airline mandate

Art Moore
WND News Center

As the Biden administration appeals a judge’s decision to strike down the mask mandate for federal transportation, the New York Times is informing its readers that masking has not stopped the spread of COVID-19.

The Times’ David Leonhardt reports the data show that in U.S. cities “where mask use has been more common, Covid has spread at a similar rate as in mask-resistant cities.”

“Mask mandates in schools also seem to have done little to reduce the spread,” he writes. “Hong Kong, despite almost universal mask-wearing, recently endured one of the world’s worst Covid outbreaks.”

The Department of Justice, meanwhile, has appealed the decision by federal Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle on April 18 to strike down the mask mandate on planes and trains. She argued that the Centers for Disease Control failed to justify the mandate, and she ruled that the CDC exceeded its authority when it issued the mandate in February 2021 without public comment. The DOJ contends Mizelle did not show how the CDC acted outside of its authority. The government insists its findings on masking in early 2021 provided “ample support” that the mandate was necessary.

However, there has been no presentation of data showing any increase in infections from air travel since the mandate was lifted more than one month ago, and airliners have never been shown to be a vector for the spread of COVID-19.

In a Senate hearing last fall, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker and Southwest CEO Gary Kelly argued that airliners provide an indoor environment as sanitized as a hospital operating room. The planes, they pointed out, are equipped with high-grade HEPA filters and regularly exchange cabin air with fresh air from outside.

WND reported earlier this week a study comparing data between counties in Kansas found that those that mandated masks for COVID-19 had a higher rate of death than those that did not.

COVID-19 data collected by the New York Times shows that the mandates had no impact on case rates. The Manhattan Institute’s City Journal published a graph based on that data comparing the cases in the 11 states that never mandated masks with the 39 that did.

White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, in fact, told then Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell in a February 2020 email that he didn’t recommend universal masking, arguing masks “are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection.” Similarly, Fauci spoke out against universal masking amid a pandemic in a “60 Minutes” interview one month later.  He warned of “unintended consequences,” saying there’s “no reason to be walking around with a mask” in “the middle of an outbreak.”

Fauci later said he told Americans they didn’t need to wear a mask because he wanted to ensure there was enough supply for frontline workers.

However, at the time of his interview, the executive director of the World Health Organization health emergencies program, Dr. Mike Ryan, said there was “no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit.”

“In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,” he said.

The WHO at the time recommended people not wear face masks unless they are sick with COVID-19 or caring for someone who is sick.

In March 2020, the CDC also said masks “are usually not recommended” in “non-health care settings.”