Passengers on public transportation in the United States braved a new world Tuesday: climbing aboard a plane, train or bus without a mask for the first time in two years.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration dropped enforcement of mask wearing after a federal judge on Monday ruled that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked the authority to implement the mask mandate to help stop the spread of covid-19.
Many of the entities that fell under the agency's enforcement arm did the same, the state's two largest commercial service airports among them.
"TSA has stopped enforcing the mask mandate," said Shane Carter, the spokesman for Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field in Little Rock. "As a result, masks are no longer required to be worn inside of Clinton National Airport."
Alex English, the spokesman for Northwest Arkansas National Airport at Highfill, had a similar comment in an email Tuesday.
"It's across the board, with no mask mandate, the airlines/airports/TSA no longer must enforce masks," she said.
Bus riders with Rock Region Metro, which provides service in Pulaski County, and Ozark Regional Transit Authority which provides bus service in Northwest Arkansas were also freed from the mandate.
"Given the challenges of trying to enforce a mask mandate that has been declared unenforceable by a federal judge, it is in the best interests of the agency and riders to eliminate the mask mandate for using the Central Arkansas public transit system," the Pulaski County transit agency said in a prepared statement.
"It's official ... ORT will begin posting 'masks optional' on our headway signs instead of 'masks required,'" Joel Gardner, Ozark's executive director, said in an email.
The Centers for Disease Control issued its mandate in January 2021 and has renewed it several times. It was scheduled to expire Monday, but the CDC extended the mandate another two weeks. Then U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa ruled that the agency improperly failed to justify its decision and didn't follow proper rule-making procedures that left the mandate flawed.
In many places, the mandate to wear a mask on a public conveyance has been around for two years. Rock Region Metro instituted its mask mandate in April 2020. Clinton National, Northwest Arkansas National and other commercial service airports had fallen under state and local edicts that have been in place for almost as long.
The CDC, while it said it no longer would enforce the order, said it "continues to recommend that people wear masks in indoor public transportation settings at this time."
President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Americans should decide for themselves whether to wear masks, undercutting efforts by his administration to urge Americans to continue to wear face coverings on airplanes, trains and buses.
That was what New Yorker Jason Casper decided during a trip to Arkansas on Tuesday to see the family of his wife, Hollie Casper, an Arkansas native.
They hadn't heard details of the ruling by the time the pair, along with their son, Silas, boarded a Southwest Flight at LaGuardia Airport, but both thought it odd that passengers near them were unmasked.
"I thought the stewardesses had just got tired of the complaining," Hollie Casper said.
Then, he said, the pilot with some reluctance announced that the mask mandate wouldn't be enforced on the flight.
A flight attendant, making light of the announcement, said the crew would provide the pilot with a stuffed unicorn to use as an emotional support animal.
"She was like,'He will be petting it the whole flight,'"Jason Casper said.
Jason and Hollie, still not understanding the change, kept their masks on throughout the flight. When they changed planes in St. Louis they noticed even more passengers had discarded their masks. Jason said he finally gave in and removed his mask, too.
The Justice Department said Tuesday it will not appeal the ruling unless the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention believes the requirement is still necessary.
In a statement, Justice Department spokesman Anthony Coley said officials believe that the federal mask order was "a valid exercise of the authority Congress has given CDC to protect the public health." He said it was "an important authority the Department will continue to work to preserve."
Coley said the CDC had said it would continue to assess public health conditions, and if the agency determined a mandate was necessary for public health, the Justice Department would file an appeal.
The patchwork of messaging contributed to confusion less than 24 hours after the ruling was handed down. The president left it up to Americans to make their own choices. His press secretary urged Americans to follow existing health guidance, because that is what the president would be doing. And Dr. Ashish Jha, the administration's coronavirus response coordinator, said on Twitter that he was disappointed in the ruling and that he would still wear a mask on planes.
The ruling took officials inside the White House by surprise and frustrated them, two senior officials said.
On Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the decision to remove the masking decision should have been up to the CDC, not the courts.
"Public health decisions shouldn't be made by the courts. They should be made by public health experts," Psaki told reporters on board Air Force One, on the way to New Hampshire. "We obviously feel confident in our authorities here given that we put the mask mandate in place and asked for 15 additional days to evaluate data based on public health information."
But the administration's confidence in its ability to enforce masking requirements conflicted with the broader reality that many masking regulations seemed to dissolve within hours of the ruling. (Some, including in New York City, remain in place.)
The Transportation Safety Authority said Monday that it would stop enforcing the CDC mandate. Several airlines, including Delta and United, told travelers that masks would not be required; some travelers learned the news mid-flight.
Clinton National officials hedged their bets Tuesday. They stopped announcements about the mask mandate. They also took down the electronic messages reminding passengers about the mask mandate, including one that was displayed on the 28-foot tall monitor in the ticket lobby.
They also removed some but not all of the signs on the doors to the terminal entrances.
"In case something might change," Carter said.
Stephanie Simpson, arriving at Clinton National for a flight, also took a hybrid approach. She wasn't wearing a mask as she strolled up to the terminal and wouldn't wear one in the airport terminal. But she said she would don a mask once she hopped aboard her flight.
"A mask is something keeping other people safe, keeping yourself safe," Simpson said. "I've avoided covid so far. I'm pretty comfortable with keeping the mask on for now."
But Rock Region Metro said that even though it adopted a mask requirement long before the CDC mandate it, it would be too difficult for the transit agency to go it alone and enforce its own mask mandate now.
"Yesterday's federal-level judicial decision could potentially create new difficulties METRO employees might encounter in enforcing a mask mandate and increase challenges to METRO's authority to maintain daily, safe operations," its statement said.
Information for this article was contributed by Heather Hollingsworth and Teresa Crawford of The Associated Press.