Sanity and freedom has returned at most places many Americans visit, with masks mandated signs, and even masks recommended signs, having been removed. But, at many health care facilities across the country mask mandates have remained in force.

The continuation of mask mandates at health care facilities is especially infuriating because, for our health’s sake, we would hope the people running these places would have understood from early on that the masks both cause health problems and are not shown to provide net protection against coronavirus. Basic medical expertise of the people to whom health care is entrusted is sadly deficient. Alternatively, taking action consistent with that expertise has been overcome by the fear of negative repercussions for standing up for reality in the face of the coronavirus scare.

Walking into a doctor’s office or hospital with their enforced mask mandates is like walking into the future depicted in the movie Idiocracy. You’re supposed to trust the medical judgment of these mask mandate enforcers? Oh brother.

Given a Friday change in guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more health care facilities have been terminating their mask mandates. The change is, though, far from a full repeal. What the CDC should have done was admit that pressuring people to wear masks at health care facilities because of coronavirus is an inexcusable violation of freedom with no medical justification. Instead, the CDC admitted no fault and lifted its guidance only in areas of the country that lack what it considers a high level of transmission of coronavirus.

This CDC change for health care facilities will bring some relief to some people by freeing them from demeaning mask mandates. But, it leaves in place, as has happened in school district and county government coronavirus policies that defer to CDC guidance, dormant mask mandates that can spring back into enforcement if the coronavirus transmission numbers increase again. Plus, with the CDC and health care facilities having admitted no fault for the mask mandate overreach, what preposterous demands might they impose in the name of countering the next health-related scare?

Reprinted with permission from the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity.