“The CDC does not mandate anything,” says Dr. Anthony Fauci. But if a Covid surge leads to a recommendation that people wear masks, “I hope they would abide by the recommendation and take into account the risks to themselves and to their families. We are not talking about forcing anybody to do anything.”
Given how some of those toddlers were the very police who would’ve needed to enforce said mandate, it’s not as simple as “don’t pander to them”. Especially since, let’s be honest, putting all the people who refused to mask up into jail cells would’ve been extremely counter-intuitive.
We claimed it was a mandate but it very quickly became clear that was in name only, which is my main gripe about it. They shouldn’t have called it a “mandate” unless they were prepared to enforce it like one, which they weren’t.