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For at least a moment Monday night, air travel was fun again.
Passengers on flight after flight erupted in joy as they learned that after a federal judge put the kibosh on the Biden administration’s attempt to extend mask mandates on air travel, airline after airline ended the mandates many had been begging to end.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of the Middle District of Florida ruled that the mandate goes beyond the authority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Delta pilot announces end of the mask mandate just before takeoff, passengers cheer. pic.twitter.com/MUkRIHAtO4
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) April 19, 2022
The government had claimed the rule was vital to sanitation on mass transit. Mizelle rejected that idea.
“Wearing a mask cleans nothing. At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither ‘sanitizes’ the person wearing the mask nor ‘sanitizes’ the conveyance,” Mizelle wrote, according to The Washington Post.
And the skies echoed with cheers.
MASK MANDATE LIFTED
Myself, and a couple hundred others, just learned mid-flight that the mask mandate is over?!
The @Delta Airlines staff just got on the intercom to announce the mandate is lifted and now optional!
Cheers followed the announcement!@cbsdenver @cbsnews pic.twitter.com/j5tLM01c9g
— Dillon Thomas (@DillonMThomas) April 19, 2022
But not so much along Pennsylvania Avenue.
“This is obviously a disappointing decision,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, according to the Post.
But for travelers, it was a day of freedom.
“Just take them off,” Simon Rojas, 29, of Laurel, Maryland, told the Post. “In the news, they’ve been saying the death rate is going down, right? Also, I think if you’re in such a closed space like a plane, that mask isn’t doing anything.”
One flight attendant almost cried at going mask-free after two years.
Plane applauded as the stewardess announced the end of the mandate. She broke into tears as she got to take off her mask for the first time in 2 years pic.twitter.com/WlCpZk30QM
— Kyle Mann (@The_Kyle_Mann) April 19, 2022
But some people do not agree.
“I still don’t understand a Florida judge reversing a federal mandate when the mandate is backed by as much science as it is,” Phil Delin, 67, of Prince George’s County, Maryland, said, told the Post, adding he would continue…