Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, an appointee of former President Donald Trump in Tampa, Florida, issued a decision on April 18 nullifying the country's national mask mandate for mass transit. With that, the bare minimum besides doing absolutely nothing to combat COVID-19 has been nixed – even as cases are rising in over half of U.S. states due to the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron.

For her part, in a 59-page lawsuit ruling, Mizelle shot down the extended mask mandate on the basis that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had overstepped its authority over the initial health order that federal agencies, such as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), were working off of. According to her, the CDC did not follow proper procedures in making its rule – thus it is unconstitutional and not applicable.

For some, this ruling has been a sign of hope. News reports and social media tell stories of crowded planes where passengers gleefully removed their masks, even throwing them away in celebration. Life is back to the pre-pandemic times, many of these folks believe, and America can get on as usual.

Others, particularly the vulnerable, feel that they will essentially be excluded from public spaces from now on due to virus fears as the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron spreads. To this group's credit, the country is seeing about 35,000 new daily infections, which is up 19 percent over the previous week and 42 percent over two weeks ago.

Daily deaths are also hovering at about 370 and hospitalizations are at about 1,400. This is pushing the country closer and closer to the unenviable point of crossing 1 million COVID-19 deaths.

However one chooses to feel about the situation, undoubtedly it means a further breakdown in the country's pandemic response. Since cities and local governments are free, as of now, to impose their own pandemic restrictions, it means, for example, that a passenger flying from Texas to New York City could go mask-free until touching down at their destination.

Some passengers might not be aware of the lapse in restrictions between their destinations, meaning more confusion and more altercations. Businesses are also still allowed to their own rules as they see fit, which further compounds the discrepancies. Ride-share apps like Uber and Lyft have kept their mask protocols in place, meanwhile, most major airlines have ditched them – though they mostly encourage passengers to still wear masks if they would like to.

All of this adds to a U.S. pandemic response that has been completely and objectively a failure. As stated before, the country is nearing 1 million confirmed COVID-19 deaths and cases are increasing. The vulnerable, such as the immunocompromised and elderly, are being completely ignored and excluded from society due to the unmitigated circulation of the virus.

Mizelle's decision was not a coincidence, as it came on the back of a concerted effort to end the pandemic insofar as it exists as a societal phenomenon. But in terms of the death and devastation, it is very real. America should not be letting its guard down at a time when a new, largely unstudied variant is coming on the scene and driving huge caseloads across the country. Experts have been crystal clear about this.

Masks are a very low-effort, low-cost non-pharmaceutical intervention tactic to mitigate the spread of the virus. In fact, it is something that should probably be normalized regardless in America; that is, if you are sick then you should always be wearing a mask in public, and it shouldn't be the slightest bit controversial. Ending the mask mandate means that we are indeed going to pre-pandemic times in a bad way, for example, creating a taboo around wearing masks as somehow an overreach on civil liberties.

There's also the economic factor to consider, as anti-restriction folks often cite as a reason to abandon all measures. For example, lifting the national mask mandate could mean the transportation sector, such as airlines and especially subway systems, public buses and trains, could see a huge worker shortage if cases predictably balloon after the mask mandate repeal – dealing even more economic damage to the people who rely on these services.

Given how politicized the entire subject has become, it is doubtful that the administration of President Joe Biden will pursue this any further by taking it to an appellate court. This is given his track record of already de-centralizing the pandemic response to the states and letting federal COVID-19 treatment funding expire. It goes to show how irresponsible the entire federal government's response continues to be, not just how irresponsible this ruling by judge Mizelle is – though it certainly is.

The national mask mandate was just a small step above doing nothing. Now, the U.S. federal government is officially doing nothing.

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