Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced legislation this week to repeal the federal mask mandate on public transportation implemented under the Biden administration, Life Site News reported.
A press release from Senator Paul’s office announced the Travel Mask Mandate Repeal Act of 2021, which will prohibit mask mandates on all public transportation.
“The federal government forcing the American people to continue to wear masks despite the fact that we’ve already reached herd immunity is ridiculous and needs to end immediately,” said Dr. Paul. “I am introducing the Travel Mask Mandate Repeal Act of 2021 to put a stop to this nanny state mandate of requiring masks on public transportation. In a free county people will evaluate their personal risk factors and are smart enough to ultimately make medical decisions like wearing a mask themselves.”
According to the press release, a companion version of the bill will be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives later this week by U.S. Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).
“There is no scientific evidence for the continuation of mask mandates on public transportation. Bottom line, mask mandates are old news, and are only being kept in place by those who relish controlling our day-to-day lives. The viral spread is collapsing and our normal lives are returning. It’s time for the CDC to follow the science and end the tyrannical COVID-19 restrictions once and for all,” said Representative Biggs.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) enacted an order on January 29, 2021 declaring it a federal crime to use public transportation without a mask, claiming authority to do so from the 1944 Public Health Service Act, which states, “The Surgeon General, with the approval of the Secretary, is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession.”
Shortly after Biden took office, the CDC announced that all people using public transportation or entering transportation “hubs” such as terminals and subway stations were required to wear masks.
“People must wear masks that completely cover both the mouth and nose while awaiting, boarding, disembarking, or traveling on airplanes, ships, ferries, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares [such as Uber],” the CDC announced.
The CDC stated public transportation operators were required to “instruct people that wearing a mask on the conveyance is a requirement of federal law and that not complying with the requirement is a violation of federal law” and force anyone who refused to comply to disembark. The agency also instructed passengers to “alert personnel” working on a conveyance or in a transportation hub if a passenger refuses to wear a mask.
The CDC guidelines carved out few very limited exceptions, which did not include individuals who were vaccinated. Its order stated it “reserved the right to enforce [the order] through criminal penalties.”
The mandate was set to expire on May 11, but the Transportation Security Administration extended it to September 14, The Hill reports.
Co-sponsors of Senator Paul’s bill include Senators Mike Braun of Indiana, Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.
Senator Cotton said the transportation mandates hurt families with children, particularly those with disabilities, by forcing them to cancel travel, deal with “untimely tantrums,” or face fines if they cannot control their children enough to force them to keep their masks on.
Life Site News cited two specific incidents in which families with children were hurt by mask mandates on transportation.
A Colorado couple was forced to disembark from their United Airlines flight when their two-year-old refused to wear a mask last December.
More despicably, another Colorado couple was forced to disembark from their Southwest Airlines flight in May because of their three-year-old with sensory processing disorder. Even though the child was complying with the mask requirement, the captain reportedly “did not feel comfortable” that the child would be able to keep his mask on for the duration of the flight. Not even documentation from the child’s occupational therapist and pediatrician attesting to the parents’ coping abilities when the child grew distressed from his mask was enough to assuage the captain’s concerns.
Republicans sent a letter to CDC director Rochelle Walensky in April challenging the mask requirements for children as young as two, citing evidence that young children were not responsible for COVID transmission.
“The CDC’s mandate that children as young as two years old must wear facemasks is among the most stringent face mask age requirements in the world,” a group of more than two dozen Republican congressmen said in the letter.
“The implementation of these recommendations has had serious consequences for some Americans,” they added, highlighting that small children have been found to account for very little, if any, COVID-19 spread. “Multiple parents of young children have been removed from flights, and in some instances, permanently banned, from future travel on the airline they were flying due to their toddler’s refusal to wear a mask.”
“For parents of children with disabilities, compliance has proved almost impossible,” they said.
As observed by The Federalist, the requirement that children as young as two wear masks is unique to the United States. In Switzerland, for example, children under the age of 12 were exempt from mask mandates, though that age has been lowered to nine for children returning to schools, while England set the requirement for children under the age of 11, and Northern Ireland set it for 13.
“Our review of scientific literature on COVID-19 infections showed ‘evidence for significantly lower susceptibility to infection for children aged under 10 years compared to adults given the same exposure,’” lawmakers wrote, citing a study that found children had 56 percent lower probability of infection as opposed to adults after contact with another infected individual.
Meanwhile, evidence continues to show that masks may not be effective in preventing the spread of COVID-19, and may in fact pose serious risk to wearers.
In a panel formed for a Life Site News event, Dr. Sheri Tenpenny, Dr. Eric Nepute, and Dr. Pam Popper outright stated “masks don’t work.”
“The only randomized control studies that have ever been done on masks show that they don’t work,” began Dr. Nepute, a fact Dr. Anthony Fauci observed as far back as February 2020 before he “changed his tune.”
Despite the media’s narrative, mask efficacy has never been settled science.
A September 2020 report by the CDC found that more than 70 percent of COVID-positive patients contracted the virus in spite of faithful mask wearing while in public. Moreover, 14 percent of the patients who said they “often” wore masks were also infected. Meanwhile, just four percent of the COVID-positive patients said they “never” wore masks in the 14 days before the onset of their illness.
The California Globe also observed that extensive randomized control trial (RCT) studies and meta-analysis reviews of those studies have shown that masks and respirators are ineffective against the spread of influenza-like illnesses and respiratory illnesses believed to be spread by droplet and aerosol particles. The Globe cited an analysis of 10 “randomized controlled tests” (RCTs) by the Centers for Disease Control that found “no significant reduction in influenza transmission with the use of face masks.”
Not only is mask effectiveness in question, but there is mounting evidence that long-term mask use could even be dangerous for some people.
A group of doctors in Oklahoma sued the Tulsa mayor and the Tulsa Health Department over the city’s mask mandate, asserting masks cause healthy people to become sick.
One of the plaintiffs, Dr. James Meehan, MD, said he has seen an increase in patients with facial rashes, as well as fungal and bacterial infections, and has heard from colleagues around the globe that bacterial pneumonia is on the rise. He asserts this increase stems directly from mask wearing.
“Why might that be? Because untrained members of the public are wearing medical masks, repeatedly … in a non-sterile fashion…. They’re becoming contaminated,” he said at an August press conference. “They’re pulling them off of their car seat, off the rearview mirror, out of their pocket, from their countertop, and they’re reapplying a mask that should be worn fresh and sterile every single time.”
“New research is showing that cloth masks may be increasing the aerosolization of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into the environment causing an increased transmission of the disease,” he added.
Dentists have also reported increases in oral hygiene issues, which they have dubbed “mask mouth.”
“We’re seeing inflammation in people’s gums that have been healthy forever, and cavities in people who have never had them before,” says Dr. Rob Ramondi, a dentist and co-founder of One Manhattan Dental. “About 50% of our patients are being impacted by this, [so] we decided to name it ‘mask mouth’ — after ‘meth mouth.’”
And in Florida, parents who were concerned about the potential harm of prolonged mask use for their children sent six face masks to a lab at the University of Florida for analysis. The lab found five of the six masks were contaminated with bacteria, parasites, and fungi, including three with dangerous pathogenic and pneumonia-causing bacteria.
