At this point the Trump regime has to be considered an active proponent of infecting as many Americans as possible with COVID-19, because it has ignored the recommendations of medical scientists, doctors, and public health experts at the CDC for close to seven months now. The CDC made it clear that a mask mandate was required on all US public transportation as we head into the flu season, and the White House wouldn't even consider it.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was blocked by the White House, according to two federal health officials.
The order would have been the toughest federal mandate to date aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to infect more than 40,000 Americans a day. The officials said that it was drafted under the agency’s “quarantine powers” and that it had the support of the secretary of health and human services, Alex M. Azar II, but the White House Coronavirus Task Force, led by Vice President Mike Pence, declined to even discuss it.
The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment, said the order would have required face coverings on airplanes, trains, buses and subways, and in transit hubs such as airports, train stations and bus depots.
A task force official said the decision to require masks should be left up to states and localities. The administration requires the task force to sign off on coronavirus-related policies.
“The approach the task force has taken with any mask mandate is, the response in New York City is different than Montana, or Tuscaloosa, Alabama,” said the official who asked not to be identified because he did not have permission to discuss the matter. “Local and state authorities need to determine the best approach for their responsive effort depending on how the coronavirus is impacting their area.”
Most public health officials believe that wearing masks is one of the most effective ways to protect against the spread of the virus, particularly in crowded, poorly ventilated public places that attract people from all over, like transportation venues. Many feel that the Trump administration has turned the wearing — or not wearing — of masks into a political expression, as seen most dramatically on Monday evening when President Trump whipped off his surgical mask at the White House door after returning from the hospital where he was treated for Covid-19.
“I think masks are the most powerful weapon we have to confront Covid and we all need to embrace masks and set the example for each other,” Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the C.D.C. director, who oversaw the drafting of the order, said in a recent interview.
Dr. Redfield has been publicly at odds with President Trump for promoting mask wearing along with social distancing, and for warning that a vaccine for the virus won’t be widely available until next year.
The thwarting of the mask rule is the latest in a number of C.D.C. actions stalled or changed by the White House. Late last month, the coronavirus task force overruled the C.D.C. director’s order to keep cruise ships docked until mid-February. That plan was opposed by the tourism industry in Florida, an important swing state in the presidential election. Political appointees at the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services have also been involved in rewriting the agency’s guidelines on reopening schools and testing for the virus, bypassing the agency’s scientists.
Some other members of the White House Task Force support a mask mandate. But others do not, among them Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a radiologist who has become Mr. Trump’s closest adviser on the coronavirus, and Mr. Pence, who runs the panel and sets the agenda.
Under this logic, there's no reason to even have a United States of America, because New York is not Montana, so national laws cannot be applied to any damn thing.
Except that public transportation is interstate travel.
We could have stopped the spread of this stupid pandemic months ago, but we refuse because of politics and racism. Rural white folk are still hoping the pandemic will kill as many of those urban people as possible so they get more political power, I guess.
At this point, I actively consider every Trump voter to be okay with racism and okay with mass carnage of non-Trump voters because they're a dangerous death cult. Trump himself is a walking public health hazard who should be in quarantine.
They're trying to kill everyone. If they can't do it with a pandemic, they'll do it with violence.
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