Biden Admin Argues CDC Has Right to Require Travelers to Mask Up in Appeals Court; Biden Admin Wants to Bring Mask Mandates BACK Onto Flights - Months After President Insisted the Pandemic Was Over, and other C-Virus related stories

AP

Biden administration argues CDC has right to require travelers to mask up in appeals court:

The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge’s ruling that the government didn’t have the right to impose a federal mask mandate on public transportation during the pandemic.

The Justice Department on Tuesday argued that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had the legal authority to require travelers to wear masks on planes, trains and buses to stop the spread of COVID-19 in the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, the Washington Examiner reported.

The appeal comes nine months after a Florida judge struck down the federal mask mandate, ruling that the CDC failed to follow proper rule-making procedures.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs in the original lawsuit, including the Health Freedom Defense Fund, said the Justice Department’s decision to wait to appeal shows a lack of urgency in the matter.

“This appeal is not about an urgent matter of public health. If the mask order had been such an urgent matter of public health, you would have expected CDC to have applied for a stay to the district court’s ruling,” an attorney representing the Health Freedom Defense Fund said, according to the Examiner. --->READ MORE HERE

TNS

Biden administration wants to bring mask mandates BACK onto flights - months after president insisted the pandemic was over:

Joe Biden's administration is fighting to reinstate a federal mask mandate for air travel – even after the president declared in September that the COVID-19 pandemic is 'over', and it's been nearly a year since domestic airline passengers have been required to mask up on flights.

The Justice Department argued the case before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Tuesday on behalf of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The legal battle to require face-coverings on flights is not popular among travel industry groups for a myriad of reasons ranging from passengers who refused to mask-up to airlines who don't want any more controversy after a series of issues led to mass delays and cancellations during and following the holiday season.

Passengers are still welcome, and sometimes even encouraged, to wear masks on flights - a fact that Republican lawmakers were quick to acknowledge.

'If you want to wear a mask on a plane, no one's stopping you,' tweeted Florida Representative Brian Mast on Tuesday. 'But we're not going back to mandates. Period.' --->READ MORE HERE

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