Mandate’s end met with relief, fear, confusion

It began in midair. Shortly after a federal judge struck down mask requirements on planes, pilots got on intercoms to share the news, and some passengers tore off their masks with whoops and glee.

Jonathan Russell Biehl, a pilot for Delta, was halfway from Tampa, Fla., to Minneapolis on Monday night when the announcement came. “The day I’ve been waiting for,” he called it. But on a flight bound for Los Angeles, Brooke Tansley, who was flying with two children too young to be vaccinated, said she felt scared as the passengers around her slipped off their masks. “All I could do was hope it’s going to be OK,” she said.

By Tuesday, more than a year after the country imposed strict masking requirements on airplanes and public transportation to combat the spread of COVID-19, a judge’s determination the federal government had overstepped its boundaries rippled across the country. The unexpected ruling by a judge in Florida instantly reshaped travel for millions while sharpening political divisions over the virus and sowing new confusion over where, exactly, Americans now need to mask up.

As much as ever, the country’s pandemic rules are a confounding patchwork. Mask requirements were toppled for many subways, buses and ride-share services. But the rules remained in place in several major cities. Subway riders in New York City were still required to wear facial coverings, but New Jersey Transit riders just across the Hudson River were allowed to take theirs off. In Philadelphia, where officials had reinstituted an indoor mask requirement this week, people were allowed to go maskless on trains and buses.

Many domestic airlines hurriedly adjusted their policies to make masks optional after the Transportation Security Administration said it would stop enforcing mandates, while some European carriers that operate in the United States kept mask rules in place.

In most facets of American life, masks became optional weeks or months ago. The largest exceptions had been airports and public transportation, along with medical facilities. But across the country Tuesday, the decision was quickly reshaping travel and commutes for millions of Americans.

In Las Vegas, Nev., passengers and flight crews passed through security checkpoints unmasked, walking past freshly outdated signs that read, “Masks required!” At one ticket counter, an agent checking passengers’ luggage wore a mask while a colleague next to her was barefaced.

Lois Strickland, a track and field coach flying home to Maryland from a vacation in New Orleans, said she was relieved to be able to fly unmasked. “I’m tired of it, OK?” she said. “I’ve already had COVID. I’ve already been vaccinated. It doesn’t make sense.”

But many public health officials reacted with alarm, warning that new infections, while low, are edging back up.

In interviews, older Americans, people with compromised immune systems, parents with young children and low-income workers who rely on public transportation worried they would now be at even greater risk with every bus ride or plane trip.

“It’s isolating,” said Catherine Muskin, of Ithaca, N.Y., and a mother of a 3-year-old and 20-month-old. She said the end of the mandates killed any hopes she had of flying to Florida.

“We still have our protocols, and we still have our rules. But now we’re the exception.”