A 35-year-old judge without any judicial experience appointed by lame-duck former President Trump and rushed through confirmation Senate hearings by Moscow Mitch McConnell despite being deemed “unqualified” by the ABA, voided the mask requirement on public transportation, including airports and airplanes overnight. She didn’t stay enforcement by 50 days as the CDC requested or pending appeal (routine for Trump cases).

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, Fla., continuing a pattern by the Trump “jurists” to set themselves up as a ruling body rather than a co-equal branch of government, found the CDC had gone too far by issuing a regulation that “acts on individuals directly” rather than just their “property interests.”

“Since the mask mandate regulates an individual’s behavior — wearing a mask — it imposes directly on liberty interests,” she wrote in a case brought by the Health Freedom Defense Fund, a group claiming to focus on “bodily autonomy” as a human right (tell that to the states that are ending women’s reproductive rights, or the people who still have to take off shoes, belts or be X-rayed and probed by TSA).

The CDC, she decided, had incorrectly described the mask mandate as a form of “sanitation” to justify its authority. “Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” she wrote. “At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither ‘sanitizes’ the person wearing the mask nor ‘sanitizes’ the conveyance.”

I learned of this in a tweet as I was at Salt Lake City International Airport, crowded with travelers of all ages and abilities, on my way back to New York. We watched as a group of employees were informed they were no longer required to wear masks and immediately tore them off. I wondered, as I watched this huge mishmash of people crowded together (what’s social distancing?), literally at the crossroads of the world, and then jammed together inside Delta’s fully filled flight, how fast any variant or new infection could spread from any part of the world and through the entire world from this vector.

Very few were wearing masks. Whole families with toddlers in strollers, old people in wheelchairs, were not wearing masks. Nor were the people hovering over me as we lined up to board and squeezed our way through the aisle to get to seats.

And I wondered how many people might have chosen not to travel at all had they been aware in advance of the change in mask mandate, but they were trapped in this place, and how many will reconsider traveling this summer. Will other countries reimpose bans or restrictions on Americans coming through because we are now a danger to their entire society? Will international travelers consider America unsafe? (Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, international visitors spent $233.5 billion here, injecting $640 million a day into the U.S. economy.)

What this ignoramus is saying “No” to is the whole concept of public health, to the ability of government – with their scientists, doctors and experts – to keep us safe from any health emergency.

Meanwhile, COVID rates are again on the rise due to the Omnicron subvariant BA.2 after falling from the Omnicron surge.

And yet, Republicans in Congress are holding up authorizing new spending to combat or contain the coronavirus with testing, vaccinations and treatment. Could it be that the Republicans are rooting for a new surge in COVID to depress the economy and maximize discontent and votes against Democrats in the midterms?

Those who challenge the ability of government to mandate masks or workers to be vaccinated (in order to provide a safe work environment for workers and customers and not be an epicenter of new spread), are the same who still push to repeal the Affordable Care Act – they see health care as a privilege, not a right. They also blocked legislation that would cut the cost of life-saving insulin from as much as $1,000 a month to $35, or allow Medicare to negotiate prices with Big Pharma.

President Biden, in contrast, has been working to expand health care and public health. His initiatives (and values) are incorporated into his budget. This is from a White House budget fact sheet:

• Prepares for Future Pandemics and Other Biological Threats. The budget makes transformative investments in pandemic preparedness across the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—$81.7 billion available over five years—to enable an agile, coordinated, and comprehensive public health response to protect American lives, families, and the economy.

• Builds Advanced Public Health Systems and Capacity. The budget includes $9.9 billion to build capacity at CDC and state and local levels to improve the core immunization program, expand public health infrastructure in states and territories, strengthen the public health workforce, support efforts to modernize public health data collection, increase capacity for forecasting and analyzing future outbreaks, including at the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics, and conduct studies on Long COVID to inform diagnosis and treatment options.

• Transforms Mental Health Care. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated an existing mental health crisis. The budget proposes reforms to health coverage and invests in the behavioral health workforce. It provides sustained and increased funding for community-based centers and clinics, and mental health staff in schools, makes historic investments in youth mental health and suicide prevention programs, and strengthens access to crisis services by building out the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline and crisis services infrastructure. These resources will help build system capacity, connect more Americans to care, and create a system of support to improve mental health for all.

• Advances Maternal Health and Health Equity. The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed nations, with an unacceptably high mortality rate for Black and American Indian and Alaska Native women. The budget includes $470 million to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity rates, expand maternal health initiatives in rural communities, implement implicit bias training for healthcare providers, create pregnancy medical home projects, and address the highest rates of perinatal disparities. The Budget also expands maternal and other health initiatives in rural communities to improve access to high-quality care.

• Accelerates Innovation through the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The budget proposes a major investment of $5 billion for ARPA-H, significantly increasing direct Federal research and development (R&D) spending in health. With an initial focus on cancer, diabetes and dementia, this major investment will drive transformational innovation in health technologies and speed the application and implementation of health breakthroughs.

The contrast couldn’t be more stark or more dire. Which will you vote for? Pandemic or public health?