NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - Mask requirements for public transport are disappearing even though a majority of Americans continue to support them, according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research.
The poll, published on Wednesday (April 21), found that 56 per cent of Americans favoured requiring people on planes, trains and buses to wear masks, while 24 per cent opposed such requirements.
The poll was conducted in all 50 states from last Thursday to Monday, just before a federal judge struck down the federal mask mandate for public transport, prompting many major airlines and transit agencies to drop their mask requirements.
The changes were met with both cheers and alarm from travellers, and the Biden administration appealed the ruling.
The support for mask mandates was evident in the poll despite steadily declining worries expressed in the poll about coronavirus infection.
Twenty per cent of respondents said they were extremely worried or very worried that they or a family member would become infected, down from 25 per cent in a similar survey last month.
Reported mask use is also declining. In an AP-NORC poll conducted in March, 44 per cent of Americans said they often or always wore face masks outside their homes, down from more than 65 per cent in January, when the Omicron wave was peaking in the United States.
Public health experts reacted with dismay to the judge's ruling striking down the mandate, and some travellers interviewed the day after the decision complained that it put many people at added risk, especially those who are immunocompromised.
"I think it is unfortunate, especially while cases are rising because of a new variant," Ms Maria White said, adding that she would continue to wear a mask on public transit because she has comorbidities.
"I want to limit my chances of getting long Covid from a Covid-19 infection," she said.
Some people said they would continue to mask up, mandate or no mandate.
"Wearing masks reduces exposure and reduces transmission of not just the coronavirus, but also flu and those pesky colds that we all hate getting," said Dr Catherine Caldwell-Harris, a psychology professor at Boston University, who has been riding on public transport in Boston for four decades.
Boston's mass transit agency dropped its mask mandate on Tuesday. Dr Caldwell-Harris said she hoped the agency would install signs recommending that people wear masks, or thanking them for wearing masks and keeping others healthy, even if these were no longer mandatory.
The latest AP-NORC poll showed a large partisan divide on the issue of mask requirements, akin to those over many other aspects of the pandemic. Eighty per cent of Democratic respondents said they favoured requiring masks on public transport, compared with 33 per cent of Republicans.
There were comparable partisan gaps over mask mandates for crowded public events and for public-facing workers.
The Biden administration said on Tuesday that it intended to appeal the judge's ruling - but only if the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) decides that extending the mask mandate is necessary.
Ms Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said at a press briefing on Wednesday that regardless of polling, the administration's recommendations would be decided by the CDC.
