sbeefyk2 wrote:
My presumption is most people will still wear a mask voluntarily on planes. We’ve known for decades flying on a plane gets you sick at a higher rate than other places (colds and flus). But my opinion is masks and vaccines should have been voluntary from the first day. If you want to wear a mask, that’s respectable. If not, equally respectable. Same for vaccines. People need to stop caring what others do.
The date on this one is fascinating considering it was a month before the US went into "lockdown".
Vaccines were mandatory only for workers at a company that required them. There was never a law passed mandating the vaccine. You could choose not to get the shot and if your employer fired you you could find another job or leave that job.
There is good evidence masks (something other than a piece of cloth) were partly effective in reducing the spread (10% according to a meta-analysis) so it made sense to add that precaution before we had the vaccine.
We seem to be at a stage where the coronavirus is spread easily but not doing much harm in terms of serious illness or death. With a large percentage of the US population either having the vaccine or having had COVID and the weakening it makes sense.
Another aspect to this from the legal side is the ruling is not on the merits of masking or not, but the process by which the rule was put in place. It is nuanced and pretty boring, but there are laws that cover the administrative state and how it functions. We need checks on a runaway administrative state. In an emergency (and in 2020 and well into 2021) I would argue for latitude in giving emergency measures although there are some interesting facets to what we often do in emergencies. I have not seen (not that I have done a deep dive) a good legal counter argument. Even lawyers on twitter who support the regulation do not seem to be able to fault the ruling other than attaching the judge's credentials (or lack thereof). A good sign a person does not have a good argument is the ad hominen attack.