The Napa Valley Transportation Authority on Thursday lifted its requirement to wear masks aboard Vine buses, after a federal judge overturned the federal mask mandate for public transit that had been in effect during the two-year coronavirus pandemic.
Effective Friday, passengers will not need a face covering to board buses in the Vine system or to enter the Soscol Gateway Transit Center in Napa, the NVTA announced in a news release Thursday. The transit authority did encourage bus riders to continue wearing masks, which became mandatory shortly after COVID-19 emergency rules took effect in early 2020.
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The lifting of Vine’s mask mandate follows a Monday ruling in U.S. District Court in Florida that struck down a federal requirement to wear face coverings on passenger trains, airplanes and transit hubs. Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle of Tampa ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not have the authority to enforce the mandate.
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The CDC had previously announced an extension of the mandate through May 3 to allow more time to study the virus’ Omicron subvariant BA.2, which now comprises more than 85 percent of COVID-19 cases in the U.S.
The future of the requirement for Vine buses was up in the air as the Justice Department appealed a court ruling voiding a nationwide mandate for public transit.
NVTA originally planned an announcement on its mask policy Wednesday, but delayed it after the U.S. Justice Department said it would appeal to reverse the order that overturned the federal mandate.
On Wednesday, the California Department of Public Health announced it would no longer require masks on public transit, saying the state would align its guidance with that of federal health officials. However, Dr. Tomas Aragon, the state’s public health officer, continued to recommend mask use during travel, citing the crowding and lack of ventilation at airports, train stations and other venues.
Reaction to the lifting of mask requirements has varied among the Bay Area’s public transit systems. As of Wednesday, the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District had ended their mandates. However, other agencies including the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Caltrain and Solano County Transit said they would either continue requiring masks, or await further federal and state guidance.
BART announced Wednesday it would make masks optional on its trains in and around San Francisco, but the authority’s board of directors said it will discuss a new, temporary mask mandate at its next meeting April 28, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
A decision by a federal judge in Florida to throw out a national mask mandate in public transportation across the U.S. created a patchwork of rules that vary by city and mode of transit. The ruling gives airports, mass transit systems, airlines and ride-hailing services the option to keep mask rules or ditch them entirely. Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains arriving into New York Penn Station wouldn't require passengers to wear masks, but New York City still has a mask mandate in place for the New York Subway system. Travelers at Palm Beach International airport Tuesday could be seen not wearing masks as they filtered through TSA security screening, many still wearing face coverings. The judge's decision freed airlines, airports and mass transit systems to make their own decisions about mask requirements, resulting in a mix of responses to the ruling.
Photos: 2 years of images tell the story of the pandemic
A worker prepares to administer a COVID-19 test at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island, Thursday, April 9, 2020, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Francisco Espana, 60, looks at the Mediterranean sea from a promenade next to the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. Francisco spent 52 days in the intensive care unit at the hospital due to the coronavirus, but today he was allowed by his doctors to spend almost ten minutes at the seaside as part of his recovery therapy. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Romelia Navarro, 64, weeps while hugging her husband, Antonio, in his final moments in a COVID-19 unit at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif., July 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Masrat Farid, a healthcare worker, prepares to administer a dose of Covishield vaccine to Rubia Begum inside a hut during a COVID-19 vaccination drive in Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir on June 22, 2021. Farid has traveled long distances to vaccinate mostly shepherds and nomadic herders in the remote meadows of the Himalayan region of Indian-controlled Kashmir. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
People watch burning funeral pyres of their relatives who died of COVID-19 in a ground that has been converted into a crematorium in New Delhi, India, Thursday, May 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Ishant Chauhan)
Chinese paramilitary police wearing goggles and face masks march in formation at the Yanqing National Sliding Center during an IBSF sanctioned race, a test event for the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Beijing, Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
New Yorkers who died during the coronavirus pandemic are projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge during a commemoration ceremony Sunday, March 14, 2021, in Brooklyn, NY. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Family members, reflected in the window, wave goodbye to nursing home resident Barbara Farrior, 85, at the end of their visit at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020, in New York. The home offered drive-up visits for families of residents struggling with celebrating the holiday alone. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Cleric women wearing protective clothing and "chador," a head-to-toe garment, arrive a cemetery to prepare the body of a victim who died from the new coronavirus for a funeral, in the city of Ghaemshahr, in north of Iran, Thursday, April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Woman attend their yoga exercise in a park while heavy fog envelops the areas of Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Debora Aberastegui holds the hands of her father Pedro Aberastegui through a plastic sleeve at the Reminiscencias residence for the elderly in Tandil, Argentina, Monday, April 5, 2021. Residents here do not have physical contact with their families or leave the residence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but stay active with group activities within the facility. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
A neonatologist examines Maria Alvarez's newborn baby girl at the National Maternal Perinatal Institute in an isolated area reserved for mothers infected with COVID-19, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, July 29, 2020. The 24-year-old first-time mother wept during her labor not just from pain, but because the baby would be born without her father. The baby's father died from the new coronavirus in June. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Protesters dance and embrace as a song plays over the speakers, during an ongoing protest against COVID-19 measures that has grown into a broader anti-government protest, in Ottawa, Ontario, on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)
Corazona Pena's body lies wrapped in plastic by a Peruvian COVID-19 specialized government team in Pucallpa, in Peru's Ucayali region, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Wearing masks and plastic gloves amid the spread of the coronavirus, girls raise her hands during class in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Nov. 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Cast members wear face masks backstage under COVID-19 protocol measures during a performance of "Rusalka" opera at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A patient rests in a chair next to his bed at the COVID-19 ward at a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Patients lie on hospital beds as they wait at a temporary makeshift treatment area outside Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
A pathologist conducts an autopsy on a man who died from COVID-19 in an anatomical theater at the Lviv National Medical University in Lviv, Western Ukraine, on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)
Siny Gueye, center left, is joined by other women fish processors to sing a blessing and thankful song at Bargny beach, east of Dakar, Senegal, Thursday April 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
A cat is carried inside a backpack in Wuhan on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Israeli child Rafael Peled, 8, looks through a VR virtual reality goggles as he receives a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from medical staff at the Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Blanca Ortiz, 84, celebrates after learning from nurses that she will be dismissed from the Eurnekian Ezeiza Hospital, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Aug. 13, 2020, several weeks after being admitted with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Father Vasily Gelevan, wearing a biohazard suit and gloves to protect against the coronavirus, gives the Bible to kiss to Serafima Matveyeva, 92, who is suspected of being infected with the coronavirus, at her apartment in Moscow, Russia, May 26, 2020. In addition to his regular duties as a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Vasily visits people infected with COVID-19 at their homes and hospitals. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Residents climb onto chairs to buy groceries from vendors behind barriers used to seal off a neighborhood in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on Friday, April 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
A health worker arrives to screen people for symptoms of COVID-19 in Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums, in Mumbai, India, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Coffins carrying the bodies of people who died of coronavirus and are stored waiting to be buried or incinerated in an underground parking lot at the Collserola funeral home in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, April 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
SOS Funeral workers transport by boat the coffin containing the body of a suspected COVID-19 victim that died in a river-side community near Manaus, Brazil on May 14, 2020. The victim, an 86-year-old woman, lived by the Negro river, the largest tributary to the Amazon river. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
A woman bangs a pot in support of medical staff who are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak during a partial lockdown against the spread of the coronavirus in Brussels on March 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Jackals eat dog food that was left for them by an Israeli woman at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel on April 10, 202. When Tel Aviv was in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, it cleared the way for packs of jackals to take over this urban oasis in the heart of the city. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
You can reach Howard Yune at 530-763-2266 or hyune@napanews.com
Howard Yune
City Editor and Public Safety Reporter
Howard Yune became the Register's city editor in September 2022. He has been a staff reporter and photographer since 2011, and previously wrote for the Marysville Appeal-Democrat, Anaheim Bulletin and Coos Bay (Oregon) World.
