As Colorado ushers in a post-Omicron period during which many local and state COVID-19 mandates have been expediently dropped, the federal government continues an edict out of touch with the people of our state – particularly those in the working class or living on assistance.

It is the Center for Disease Control’s lingering mandate for masking on all public transportation. The nationwide policy, which is enforced by the Transportation Security Administration, runs through March 18. That’s more than a half year since, all the way back in August 2021, the federal government last extended the mandate.

The blanket policy trickles down from on-high to most acutely affect the day-to-day lives of working-class Coloradans – those among us who rely on, say, the Mountain Metro city bus in Colorado Springs, the Regional Transportation District light rail in the Denver Metro or the Bustang between Grand Junction and Denver and up and down I-25.

Yes, for the aloof among us who don’t have to ride public transit, average Joes and Jills are forced to cover their faces when going here and there despite the fact, as the Gazette’s Seth Klamann reported in two articles late last week, the current and near-term COVID threat to Colorado has evaporated in short order. The Omicron variant spread through us like it has the rest of the world, fast and furious, resulting in state officials estimating 90% of people have been infected. Daily cases have now dipped almost into the hundreds after a ten-fold statistical decrease in just a month. Rachel Herlihy, Colorado’s state epidemiologist, said it’s projected COVID-related hospitalizations will drop below 250 by the end of February. Herlihy and Scott Bookman, Colorado’s COVID-19 incident commander, explicitly said the high levels of immunity mean cases and hospitalizations should continue to fall further until the early summer, at least.

These ever-cautious state health officials view our COVID situation so positively that, as Klamann also reported Thursday, the state deactivated its crisis standards for both hospital staffing and emergency services. And that’s all on top of the fact anyone who wants to get a COVID-19 vaccines and/or booster shots can receive them at no cost while – yes – other effective treatments are available, too.

So why then, when we’re all living in that statistical and medical reality, is it OK for the federal government to make public-transportation users the only forcibly masked widespread demographic among us? That’s a question our Colorado elected representatives should consider after, last week, the state of Texas sued to overturn the federal mandate.

“The CDC has no authority to make rules that limit the freedom of millions of travelers without any evidence in the hopes it may have some preventative effect,” the suit reads.

Back here in Colorado, even in some of our state’s most pro-mask places – such as the city of Denver, where there have been recent rollbacks in local mask mandates – a citizen who is fortunate enough to privately transport possesses the right to live a mask-free life. The fortunate among us get to go from home, to the grocery store, to work, to socializing and everywhere in between while breathing free and smiling for all to see. Meanwhile, the federal mandate continues to discriminate against the poor and working class.

Colorado Springs Gazette editorial board