Were masks really such an imposition on liberty?
By Robin Givhan / The Washington Post
The whoops echoed through airplanes as flight attendants and pilots announced midair that a judge in Florida had tossed out the federal mask mandate that has been in effect since January 2021.
On a Southwest flight from Nashville to Charlotte, passengers hooted and hollered and twirled their freshly ditched masks in the air with giddy delight. They reveled in the knowledge that while they might be required to buckle their seat belt, turn off their cellphone, put their seat backs in the upright position and refrain from smoking on their grueling one-hour-and-20-minute flight, the one thing they would not have to do was wear a mask. The long, torturous nightmare of government overreach, which is how so many aggrieved passengers viewed the mandate effecting public transportation, has come to an end. Maybe.
The judge’s ruling doesn’t preclude local authorities and private companies from requiring masks. And some transit systems and airports continue to insist that customers and staff remain masked. Notably, masks still are required on New York subways and at both LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports. And, of course, the pandemic is full of twists and turns, including the BA.2 omicron subvariant which is driving new coronavirus cases along the East Coast. There may well be new federal guidance to make sense of.
But for the moment, there are squeals of unbridled delight, which aren’t so much a reflection of just how onerous the mask mandate has been but rather just how childish and selfish so much of the country has been in dealing with it.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/comment-were-masks-really-such-an-imposition-on-liberty/
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Watching the news about Ukraine and then openly whining about wearing a three ounce piece of cloth on their face. What a bunch of ugly selfish children.
