The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Biden Administration have a difficult decision to make in two months.
The federal mask mandate expires on Sept. 13. The mandate requires passengers on public transportation to wear a mask at all times, including while in airports and during flight - whether that flight is 50 minutes or five hours.
It's time.
It's time to stop enforcing this policy.
And I understand this is likely an unpopular opinion but, then again, I have hundreds of those. Like, Van Halen was better with Sammy Hagar as the lead singer instead of David Lee Roth, or Reggie Jackson wasn't a true Yankee because he only played five years in New York, or Skor is the better toffee candy bar than Heath.
Or, the CDC should let the deadline on the mask mandate pass without further action.
The mandate is in place to better prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and for the better part of a year that has been a worthy goal.
But it has also proven problematic.
Physical confrontations on airplanes have dramatically increased this year, and of the 3,000+ that have been recorded by the Federal Aviation Administration so far in 2021, nearly three-quarters of them have been a direct result of arguments over wearing a face mask - whether between crew members and passengers, or passengers vs. passengers.
The whole idea of face masks was that it was something the airlines encouraged in the summer of 2020, at the height of the pandemic - they wanted a uniform policy mandated by the federal government instead of having various, or differing, policies set by each airline.
Here we are a year later, and the irony has set in. The airlines see the unintended consequence of face masks in every disagreement aboard a flight; they see the efficacy that the vaccines are having; they have noted that nearly 70 percent of the country has had at least one shot against the virus, and now they want the CDC to let the mandate quietly expire on Sept. 13 without being renewed for another four months.
For many reasons, I believe this is the best course of action.
People who are vaccinated can now come and go as they please, except for some stores and businesses that still require a mask. The vaccinated still have their reasons and still have the option to wear a mask if they so choose. You don't need a mandate to wear one if you believe it protects you.
The unvaccinated have their reasons. And they, too, have the option to not wear a mask if they so choose. See, the thing is, anti-vaxxers are not going to have their minds changed. But should they be denied the privilege of flying over a mask?
That's the touchy question.
When first proposed a year ago, we can't deny that the idea of wearing a mask was a comfort zone for an airline industry struggling with the dramatic loss of customers. Simply put, having the entire plane wear a mask encouraged more people to fly. It made them feel safer.
To be blunt, while I say it's time to rescind the mask mandate, I still regard it as a minor inconvenience. Honestly, wearing a mask is about as big a problem to me as having to take my shoes and belt off. And we've been doing that for the better part of 20 years now.
My fear, however, is that the mandate is going to someday cause a far bigger problem while in the air than just some unruly passenger being eventually duct-taped to a seat.
One of these days, a confrontation is going to escalate far further than the crew member who had a finger bitten or the flight attendant who caught an errant punch square in the face and had two teeth knocked out.
Ask yourself, is it worth it to have a mandate that ostensibly is for your safety but only leads further to unsafe conditions?
That's not something I want to find out.
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