How to Spot Canadians at a US Airport: Look for Lots of Masks | CBC News

Meanwhile, Canada maintains its precautions against the pandemic.

All of which led to divergent scenes at Reagan National Airport near downtown Washington.

At most of that airport, as in most of the United States, wearing masks is now decidedly optional. There were covered faces here and there on Tuesday.

It was nothing like the group of hidden mugs that surrounded baggage carousel 4A in Terminal A, the airport’s unofficial Little Canada. Virtually everyone present remained masked.

‘I’m not going to take off my mask’

When asked about the change in US policy, Winnipeg’s Sunnie Peck slapped her forehead to express her bewilderment.

“I won’t take my mask off,” said Peck, who had been visiting grandchildren in Washington and was preparing to board a flight back through Toronto.

“There is science. Whether you believe in it or not.”

Peck says he’s glad Canada hasn’t continued to drop mask requirements amid a pandemic that has killed many millions worldwide and for which hospitalization rates are still quite high in Canada and in some other countries.

Some travelers agreed, like one woman who, asked about the policy change, pointed to her chin and said, “That’s why I put on two masks.”

The pandemic does seem to be in a family calm, however, in the US. And several said now is the time to move to voluntary mask wearing.

CLOCK | Confusion over masks at US airports:

Confusion After US Judge Overturns Travel Mask Mandate

The US will no longer mandate the wearing of masks on board planes and other forms of public transportation after a federal judge in Florida struck down the mandate, sparking confusion among some travelers because companies can still enforce their own rules. about masks. 2:03

Lainie Weinstein from Toronto had just spent a few days with her US-born husband visiting family in Washington and they were in no hurry to put on their mask.

He said he is “fully in favor” of the US move.

“If you want to wear a mask, you can wear a mask. If you don’t want to wear a mask, you don’t have to. So it’s up to each person.”

When asked if he thinks most Canadians share that view, he said: “Absolutely not.”

Her husband, Scott Weinstein, agreed that there is an obvious cultural contrast between his native United States and his new home: “It’s definitely much stricter in Canada,” he said.

But he said he was fine putting on that blanket for the trip to Toronto.

“It’s a one-hour flight, so we’ll survive,” he said.

Celebrations on some flights

The rules are not only inconsistent across the continent. There is anecdotal evidence of different practices at different levels.

While some passengers from Canada said there was universal use of masks on their flights, people on a flight from Canada to the US were said to have enjoyed looser requirements.

A passenger on a Delta flight from Calgary to Minneapolis said some people cheered when the crew announced masks were now optional.

Andrea van Vugt, a trade expert and adviser to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was on the flight and said about half of the passengers were wearing masks and the other half were not.

In her ruling, US District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of Florida said the Biden administration had not only exceeded its legal rights with the mask mandate, but also skipped required procedural steps that they should have allowed public comment.

Mizelle was appointed to the court in the closing weeks of the Trump administration, for which her husband, Chad Mizelle, served as legal counsel at the White House and at the Department of Homeland Security.

The American Bar Association had called Mizelle unqualified to be a judge; that described she as smart, hard-working and “charming” but without the necessary legal experience.

So should Americans still wear masks on planes?

“[It’s] it’s up to them,” US President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday.

unavoidable concerns

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the administration was reviewing the case and said policy should be guided by public health experts, not the courts.

The US Centers for Disease Control recently extended the mandate until May 3pending your review.

Among the unavoidable concerns for policymakers and travelers is whether vulnerable people can protect themselves in the absence of widespread mask use.

Some public health experts have expressed confidence that a high-quality mask can provide significant protection against virus transmission.

But the masking policy is also a political decision, and US politics is unsettled on the issue, offering no obvious choice for Biden, with the midterm elections months away.

politics at stake

There is some evidence that Americans want mask mandates to continue on planes: 60 percent doaccording to a new Harris poll.

Yet the percentage of Americans who regularly wear masks is declining, even in a city like Washington, which until recently had its own mask-wearing mandate.

Fewer than half of Americans, 44 percent, now wear masks around other people, according to a recent Associated Press report. poll which showed a sharp drop from last year.

Independent voters are even less likely to wear masks than the national average, says a recent Economist-YouGov poll.

So Biden and his team will review the data on the virus, his legal outlook and politics as they weigh their response to a Florida judge.

Meanwhile, two years into a deadly pandemic, it’s a time of transition in the North American neighborhood, and you can see it in the faces of air travelers.

Or in the case of one pocket in that neighborhood, around the 4A baggage carousel, about half of its face.