Strange, isn't it?
Within a few hours of each other, most of America's airlines on Monday abandoned all requirements that passengers be masked. At the same time, the shopping mall near my house became full of unmasked customers, whereas a few days earlier most customers had been masked. Same with Safeway this morning, where I buy my groceries.
All because a federal judge in Florida -- a judge appointed by Trump, who ignored a rating of "not qualified" by the American Bar Association in making his appointment -- ruled that the C.D.C. had overstepped its legal authority and had not followed proper rule-making procedures, and that therefor the federal rule was invalid.
No one waited to see if the ruling was to be appealed, or if the judge would be asked to stay her ruling pending appeal. Within hours, not only all major airlines, but also Amtrak and transportation authorities in a number of cities across the nation stopped enforcing the masking requirement, and, in most cases, dropped their own requirements.
It's as though this one Florida judge had declared the pandemic over -- even as Covid incidence has been rising in most states, in response to the BA-2 subvariant -- and that we have returned to the pre-pandemic days of 2019. "Let the good times roll!" the populace exults. Let's dance through the tulips, with happy Disney birds flying and singing joyfully about our heads and squirrels exchanging kisses in the background.
No thanks. Not for me. My mask stays on whenever I'm indoors in a public setting, except while eating. It stays on especially in crowded airplanes, trains, buses, subways, and light rail. It stays on and I'll glower at those of my un-masked neighbors who blow their possibly virus-laden breaths in my direction.
My fellow Americans often strike me as a class of mindless kindergarten children, totally lacking in self-discipline. I probably strike them as a cruel, forbidding, kill-joy headmaster in a nineteenth century British school.
We'll see who laughs last.
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