The Biden administration’s announcement that it will maintain a mask mandate on federally regulated transportation is, once again, making the United States in general, and the Biden administration in particular, an outlier.
This week, the United Kingdom will finish the processing of dropping all of its travel rules: masks, passenger locator forms, testing requirements, quarantines, the lot. Vaccinated travelers to Britain have not been required to take tests before they enter for around a month now, and the British masks-on-public-transportation mandate was dropped in February. As of today, Heathrow Airport no longer requires masks for anyone, and British airlines such as British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are nixing all their requirements, too. If anything, Britain is a little late to the change. Ireland scrapped its last rule on March 6.
But the United States — Britain’s freer and more rambunctious cousin? The United States still requires everyone who enters the country to get a Covid test — even if they are fully vaccinated and boosted — and it persists in the ridiculous superstition that is cloth masking on transportation. This means that passengers on a British Airways flight from London to New York must wear masks and carry the results from a negative COVID test with them, but passengers on a British Airways flight from New York to London can get on the plane without encumbrance.
Is this because Americans are more worried about Covid than are the Brits? It sure doesn’t look that way:
The Senate on Tuesday voted to nix a requirement to wear masks on public transportation as the country rolls back coronavirus rules and restrictions.
Senators voted 57-40 on the resolution, which would reduce Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) requirements that most people wear masks on public transportation, including trains, airplanes and buses.
The bill was introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet (Colo.), Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), Jon Tester (Mont.), Mark Kelly (Ariz.), Joe Manchin (W.Va.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Jacky Rosen (Nev.) and Maggie Hassan (N.H.) each voted for it.
One must ask: Is Joe Biden incapable of learning? There is no good reason for these regulations to continue, and we all know it. There is no scientific case for them. There is no international consensus in their favor. There is no majority in Congress that is forcing them. Covid-19 was not Joe Biden’s fault in any way. Indeed, as he finally learned, there was pretty much nothing that he, or any other president, could do about it. But he can get out of the way. By refusing to do so, he is blowing it all over again.