Public Transportation Mask Mandate Extended

Cleaning staff who take public transportation to work can’t put away their masks yet. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) extended the public transportation mask mandate until April 18, Infection Control Today reports. The mandate was set to expire on March 18. 

The mandate covers travel on planes, trains, and buses and includes stations and transportation hubs. This is the fourth extension since the mandate was announced in January 2021. The TSA made the decision based on recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“CDC will work with government agencies to help inform a revised policy framework for when, and under what circumstances, masks should be required in the public transportation corridor,” the agency said in a statement. “This revised framework will be based on the COVID-19 community levels, risk of new variants, national data, and the latest science.”

The mandate extends through the upcoming spring break season and is unlikely to end before the season is over. Overall reaction to the mandate extension has been positive. Bob Wachter, chair of the University of California, San Francisco Department of Medicine, said in a tweet that the mask mandate extension is “the right call” that will help keep people safe when they’re “shoulder-to-shoulder w[ith] strangers for hours, folks coming from places w[ith] different community rates of COVID-19.”