January 30 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ordered on the 29th that in order to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, passengers and staff of public transportation systems nationwide must wear masks, and violators may face criminal punishment.
Under the new regulations, a face mask must be worn while waiting and taking public transportation, including airplanes, boats, trains, subways, buses, taxis and shared cars, while in or out of the United States; at stations, airports and ports.
Not only passengers, but also bus system employees must wear masks.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also requires the type of masks and how to wear them.
They can be market masks or homemade masks, but they must be composed of at least two layers of tightly woven fabric, which cannot be light-transparently and cannot have breathing valves when facing the light source; masks must completely cover the mouth and nose.
According to regulations, a minority group of people and some cases can not wear masks, such as children under the age of two, people who cannot wear masks due to illness, and when eating, drinking water and taking medicine for a short time.
After the outbreak of the coronavirus, health experts repeatedly called for masks in public, and many Americans are unwilling to wear masks.
Wearing masks or not has even become a political symbol in the United States.
After being sworn in as President of the United States on the 20th, Joseph Biden signed a number of orders, including the “100-day mask order”, which requires people to wear masks and maintain social distance in federal government buildings, urges local governments at all levels to take the same measures, and calls on the American people to adhere to wearing masks for 100 days from the 20th.
American Airlines operators and most other bus departments have required passengers to wear masks, and the CDC order provides a basis for staff to force passengers to wear masks.
As required by the CDC, bus system operators should remind and supervise passengers to wear masks, and can refuse passengers without masks to take transportation or require such passengers to leave the transportation.
The CDC said that people who violate the “mask order” may face criminal punishment, but the CDC “strongly encourages” to wear masks voluntarily and supports civil punishment measures.
The “Mask Order” is scheduled to take effect on February 1, and there is no specific validity period.
The website of Forbes magazine said that last September, the U.S. CDC drafted a similar order requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on public and commercial transportation, but it was banned by the Trump administration.
Therefore, the CDC of the United States only strongly recommended that people wear masks at that time.
