Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House chief medical adviser on the novel coronavirus, recently said that allowing Americans to fly without masks is a “complicated issue,” Axios reported.
Fauci on flying and face masks
Fauci told Axios during a Wednesday event that he hopes the guidelines for American flyers will change. But it’s hard for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to make a clear-cut rule on how people can fly without masks.
- “It’s complicated because the people who are vaccinated could easily be on airplanes without a mask because we know you’re protected, whether you’re indoor or outdoor,” Fauci said.
- “The trouble is that we don’t have vaccine passports, so we don’t know who is vaccinated or not.”
Fauci’s comments come after the CDC changed its guidelines to say that fully vaccinated Americans can ditch their face masks in most indoor and outdoor settings, The Associated Press reports.
Do people still wear masks at airports?
Bill Wyatt, executive director of Salt Lake City Department of Airports, recently told the Deseret News that people still wear masks at airports for the most part. The Salt Lake International Airport follows all guidelines set out by Transportation Security Administration, he said.
- And yes, people still wear face masks on planes leaving Salt Lake City, Wyatt said.
- “It is required by the FAA. ... They used their federal authority to require this and actually at all transportation facilities and hubs and on airlines,” Wyatt said.