I agree mask mandates have unfortunately been a political issue for a long while. Scott Gottleib, a former FDA head, is often on tv giving his opinion on networks across the political spectrum. I have found him the least political and more practical than any of the other experts I’ve seen. Even though he was on the board of Pfizer, I never once saw anything like promoting their vaccine.

The day after the judges ruling he was on CNBC. His opinion was that the controversy was the fault of the cdc. He said while the FDA has long had procedures in place to decide upon actions based on data, the CDC has no such process. As a result their decisions are by definition arbitrary and seen as political and that undermines credibility. It is a government entity that has little experience mandating national policy. He said they need data driven decisions.

His advice was for people who wanted to mask or had underlying illness or immune compromised they should wear a well fitting kn95 or N95 mask at least on boarding and exiting the plane. That is more key to their personal protection than making everyone to wear Ill fitting cloth masks they are not wanting to wear he said..

If they reverse the finding it will cause more fights on flights than ever before. If a reinstated mandate was soon reversed again with hospitalizations falling, as Gottleib suggested, it will cause even more to lose faith in the CDC. There is nothing worse than the US Justice system…except nearly all of the others. 😀