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The Biden administration might extend the federal mask mandate for mass transit yet once more, White House Covid-19 response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha claimed on NBC’s The Today Program on Monday. Host Savannah Guthrie asked Jha whether the mandate, established to expire next week, ought to be extended due to a surge in Covid situations in some parts of the U.S. as a result of an Omicron sub-variant.
“This is a decision that the CDC director Dr. [Rochelle] Walensky is going to make. I know the CDC is working on developing a scientific framework for how to answer that,” Jha responded. “We’re going to see that framework come out in the next few days.”
Guthrie then followed up, asking whether or not an extension of the seemingly obsolete mandate is “on the table.”
“This is a CDC decision, and I think it is absolutely on the table,” Jha said. “And Dr. Walensky is going to make her decision based on the framework that the CDC scientists create.”
.@SavannahGuthrie spoke with White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. @ashishkjha about the rising COVID cases and mask mandates. pic.twitter.com/OZX62EaN3o
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) April 11, 2022
The existing mask required puts on public transport consisting of trains and also buses, in addition to on aircraft. The mandate was previously extended in mid-March.
Jha’s comments come almost three weeks after 10 U.S. airline company CEOs, consisting of the heads of United, Delta, and also Southwest Airlines, reached out to the administration to lift the mask mandate for domestic flights.
“It makes no sense that people are still required to wear masks on airplanes, yet are allowed to congregate in crowded restaurants, schools and at sporting events without masks, despite none of these venues having the protective air filtration system that aircraft do,” the ten CEOs wrote in a joint open letter to President Biden.
“We are requesting this action not only for the benefit the of the traveling public, but also for the thousands of airline employees charged with enforcing a patchwork of now-outdated regulations implemented in response to COVID-19,” the letter adds.
