Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) should have the authority to mandate mask wearing regardless of whether it is in compliance with the law.
After a circuit court judge in Florida ruled that the CDC could not impose a mask mandate on public transportation Monday, Fauci blasted the decision in an interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt released Thursday. The top medical advisor to President Joe Biden said he was “surprised and disappointed” that a court would step in on a public health issue.
This will probably get some pick up.
Fauci on the repeal of the plane mask mandate
“This is a CDC issue, it should not have been a court issue.”
Via @kasie
pic.twitter.com/4sGNGdTL32— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) April 21, 2022
“Those types of things really are the purview of the CDC, this is a public health issue,” Fauci said. “For a court to come in, and if you look at the rationale for that it really is not particularly firm, and we are concerned about that, about courts getting involved in things that are unequivocally public health issues.”
“This is a CDC issue, it should not have been a court issue,” he continued. (RELATED: Corporate Media Goes Into Full Panic Mode After Travel Mask Mandate Ends)
Fauci said it was “perfectly logical” for the CDC to continue to extend the mask mandate for travel, even as all 50 states and most localities have dropped mask ad vaccine mandates, because the U.S. is going to see an “inevitable” increase in cases of COVID-19 soon.
“For a court to come in and interfere in that, is really unfortunate. It’s unfortunate because it’s against public health principles, number one,” Fauci added. “Number two, it’s because that’s no place for the courts to do that. This is a CDC decision, and that’s very bad precedent when you have courts making a decision, and looking at what the basis of the decision was, it was not sound.”
Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, a Trump-appointed federal judge, ruled that the CDC’s order exceeded the agency’s authority under the Administrative Procedure Act. Fauci did not elaborate on why he is in legal disagreement with a federal judge.
The Biden administration intends to appeal Mizelle’s decision. After the ruling, every major U.S. airline made masking on flights optional.