Republicans Declare War on Mask Mandates

Mask mandates might be a relic of the past.

The federal government eliminated them at the close of the national health emergency declared around COVID-19, citing high levels of vaccinations that made the need to slow the spread of the virus even less prudent. Many businesses followed suit, with voluntary masking requirements in most stores dissipating as more and more people received the vaccine.

But as some schools and medical facilities have begun reinstating them amid a surge of a new strain of COVID-19, Republican lawmakers want them to stay a thing of the past, launching bills aimed at restricting the federal government’s ability to impose similar mandates in the future.

Citing arguments that masks didn’t work to slow the spread of the virus during COVID—which most studies contest—Ohio Republican Senator JD Vance announced plans September 5 to introduce the Freedom to Breathe Act, which would permanently prevent the federal government from reimposing federal mask mandates in the United States.

“We tried mask mandates once in this country. They failed to control the spread of respiratory viruses, violated basic bodily freedom, and set our fellow citizens against one another,” said Vance in a news release announcing the legislation. “This legislation will ensure that no federal bureaucracy, no commer