Past England, Northern Eire, Norway and Barbados, locations that don’t at the moment have masks necessities within the air embrace Mexico, St. Lucia, the Bahamas and Jamaica. The US, Scotland, Italy and China are among the many many nations that proceed to require masks on planes.
Airport guidelines could also be stricter than aircraft guidelines on a given route, that means a traveler might need to placed on a masks upon arrival. Airports in Norway, Denmark and England have been outliers in lifting masks necessities, in keeping with the Airports Council Worldwide, a commerce group representing almost 2,000 airports.
When can I cease flying with a masks in the USA?
Possibly on April 19, if — and that’s a giant if — the White Home doesn’t lengthen the federal masks mandate additional. Even flight attendants are divided on whether or not the mandate ought to be prolonged once more, with some saying that the masks rule is just not price it, given the issues imposing it, whereas others argue that the rule is important to conserving medically susceptible vacationers secure.
Ought to Covid case counts have an effect on masks mandates?
It will depend on whom you ask.
Internationally, case rely numbers differ. In current weeks, case numbers have dipped to their lowest stage since June in the USA. Canada can also be right down to its lowest variety of instances since December. However in lots of different locations, instances are rising. As England moved away from airport and airline masks mandates on March 16, case counts hit their highest level in almost a month. In the meantime, a extremely transmissible subvariant often called BA.2 is pummeling some components of Asia and Europe. And on Sunday, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden Administration’s prime adviser on the pandemic, predicted that the USA would ultimately see an identical “uptick” of BA.2 instances.
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March 22, 2022, 7:00 p.m. ET
“Covid is just not over,” mentioned Leonard Marcus, the director of Harvard’s Aviation Public Well being Initiative, which produced a report that some airline executives have used to rationalize ending masks necessities. Dr. Marcus mentioned that it’s too quickly for him to have an opinion on whether or not BA.2 deserves an extension of the federal masks mandate. However as soon as lifted, he mentioned, a masks mandate will probably be tough to reinstate.
Some proponents of ending masks mandates argue that as long as vaccines are stopping critical illness, case counts are irrelevant, as a result of most worldwide vacationers are vaccinated.
In a press release saying the top of its masks requirement final week, Heathrow Airport embodied this line of pondering, mentioning “the robust safety offered by vaccination packages all over the world” and an embrace of a “transfer in direction of studying to stay with Covid long run.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/22/journey/masks-covid-airplanes-airports.html
