Sen. Vance Seeks to Block Any Return of Federal Mask Mandates

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) speaks at the Heritage Foundation's Leadership Summit in National Harbor, Md., on Apr. 20, 2023. Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) is introducing legislation in the Senate—the Freedom to Breathe Act—that would prohibit all federal officials, including President Joe Biden, from issuing new mask mandates covering domestic air travel, public transit systems, or primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools.

The Vance proposal would also ban air carriers, transit authorities, and education officials from refusing to serve individuals who choose to not wear a mask.

“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,” Vance said in a statement.

“This legislation will ensure that no federal bureaucracy, no commercial airline, and no public school can impose the misguided policies of the past. Democrats say they’re not going to bring back mask mandates—we’re going to hold them to their word.”

According to the bill text provided by Mr. Vance, the proposal, if adopted, would be effective through Dec. 31, 2024, and provides that “notwithstanding any other provision of law, no federal funds may be obligated or expended to propose, establish, implement, or enforce, directly or indirectly through the imposition of a condition on receipt of federal funds, any requirement that an individual wear a mask or comply with a mask mandate while traveling as a passenger of an air carrier in the national airspace system, using public transit, or while in any elementary school, secondary school, or institution of higher education.”

Vance’s proposal follows the issuance of new mandates by some American medical, municipal, and academic authorities as reports of an apparent increase in new COVID-19 virus cases become public. The federal Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), however, has said it presently has no plans to renew mask mandates that were imposed during the pandemic prompted by the virus that killed more than 1 million Americans beginning in January 2020.

Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus visit the institute in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on Feb. 3, 2021. HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via Getty Images

The virus is thought by many American biomedical, law enforcement, and national security experts to have originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China as a result of gain-of-function genetic research funded in part and indirectly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) via the New York-based EcoHealth Alliance non-profit.

Mr. Vance acting on the mask mandate also comes on the heels of Aug. 31 reports by The Epoch Times of new studies conducted by researchers in South Korea and Germany that found suspected links between KN95 and KN94 masks to nausea, vomiting, organ damage, and cancer.

Also, President Biden is expected to ask Congress to appropriate funds for research on a new COVID-19 vaccine that is targeted at two variants that appear to be behind the new cases being reported. The president said he expects the new vaccine “will be recommended for everybody.”

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) speaks during a House Freedom Caucus press conference on appropriations on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 25, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

His statement prompted strong reactions among congressional Republicans and the general public. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), for example, told The Epoch Times on Aug. 31 that, “It’s no coincidence that the Biden administration is once again fully embracing the idea of another pandemic just before an election. I’m glad the scientific community is conducting research and telling the truth about masks, rather than giving in to the Left’s crusade to muzzle the American People.”

The Tennessee Republican added that "the White House’s push for more vaccines and a return to masking only reinforces the notion that Joe Biden has no problem using fear to increase his control over Americans. Families should be free to make decisions that are most appropriate for their circumstances, weighing all the possible factors, without the looming threat of government coercion.”

Dr. William Schafner, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told Yahoo News that “some people thought masks were a bother,” he says. “If they don’t have to use them, they won’t, and many people have decided they’re no longer necessary.”

Dr. Judith O'Donnell, section chief of infectious diseases at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, agreed, telling Yahoo News that “masking fatigue is real.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former NIH executive and White House health adviser to both presidents Donald Trump and Biden, told CNN that he worries about public opposition to masking.

“I would hope that if we get to the point that the volume of cases is such and organizations like the CDC recommends—CDC does not mandate anything—recommends that people wear masks, I would hope that people abide by that recommendation and take into account the risks to themselves and their families,” Mr. Fauci said.