As COVID-19 began to surge again in late summer, so did the debate about mask mandates.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaxed its mask guidance in the spring when COVID numbers began to decline amid rising vaccinations. However, the agency reinstated recommendations for individuals, both unvaccinated and vaccinated, to wear masks indoors as cases began to rise again in July as the delta variant spread. The CDC’s guidance amplified the division among Americans about whether the government should be able to dictate safety precautions such as masks.
The debate rang loud in Congress, where Attending Physician Brian Monahan issued a requirement in late July that House members and staff should be required to wear masks indoors and recommended the same guidance for the Senate. Democrats backed the new rules and argued they should be applied broadly because of evidence that masks slow the spread of the virus, while many Republicans refuted the claim that masks are preventing the spread of COVID.
“Do masks even work? Do they do more harm than good — particularly to children who have a low risk of serious disease or death from COVID?,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said in a statement. “Remember, the initial goal of public policy was to flatten the curve so we wouldn’t overwhelm hospitals. At some point, federal agencies moved the goal posts. The initial goal was achievable. I’m not even sure what the new goal is.”
Other Republican lawmakers shared Johnson’s exasperation with seemingly arbitrary guidelines. “This is some serious nanny-state stuff that will only breed resentment. No kidding,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said on the House floor.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) likewise said that the mask mandate from the Capitol Hill attending physician was not based on science. “Make no mistake — the threat of bringing masks back is not a decision based on science, but a decision conjured up by liberal government officials who want to continue to live in a perpetual pandemic state,” McCarthy tweeted.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), meanwhile, told a reporter that McCarthy was “a moron” for that statement. When asked about her comment later at a news conference, Pelosi reiterated her belief that McCarthy’s comment was potentially harmful. “To say that wearing a mask is not based on science, I think is not wise,” she said. “And that was my comment. And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”
Further politicizing the issue, several Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), attributed the mask mandate to Pelosi, despite it clearly coming from the Office of the Attending Physician. “If you want to understand how power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, look no further than the other chamber in the United States Capitol,” Cruz said on the Senate floor in regards to the mask mandate. “Speaker Nancy Pelosi is drunk on power.”
The debate over masks echoed throughout the country, especially as schools began to reopen.
In Florida, while COVID numbers rose sharply in the late summer, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis banned school districts from mandating masks, saying districts that did would lose state funding.
“I want to empower parents to be able to make the best decisions they can for the well-being of their children,” DeSantis said at a press conference. He added that parents are in the best position to evaluate “the effect that this would have on their children.” A Florida judge later ruled DeSantis’ ban on mask mandates was unlawful in a lawsuit brought by parents. The judge ruled that face mask mandates are “reasonable and consistent with the best scientific and medical opinion in this country” and cited a law that says school districts can take actions that are “reasonable and necessary to achieve a compelling state interest.”
Later in August, the U.S. Department of Education warned education leaders in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah that their mask mandate bans were discriminatory. Specifically, the Biden administration argued that if children with disabilities could not safely return to school without risking COVID-19 infection, then mask mandate bans can be considered discriminatory.
Without a federal policy on masks, mandates vary at the local level, with some states and counties requiring indoor mask wearing for unvaccinated people, and in some cases, vaccinated individuals. As the pandemic continues, the debate over masks will remain contentious.
For more background, see the April 2020 issue of Congressional Digest on “Facial Recognition.”
