NYT Continues Pushing Pandemic-Era Practice

Leah Barkoukis | August 16, 2024 8:00 AM

By now, Americans have come to expect the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to go to the extreme when it comes to public health and safety. Just look at their resource page on Child Passenger Safety, which recommends keeping kids rear-facing in car seats “until they reach the maximum weight or height limit of their car seat”—in other words, from “birth until age 2-4.” It’s as absurd as it is impossible, so by now we’ve learned to just laugh and move on—the same approach one ought to take with a New York Times travel article that if you didn’t double check the date of publication, sounds like it came straight out of 2020.

“Late-Summer Travel Plans?” the headline asks. “You Might Want to Put On a Mask.”

“With U.S. Covid-19 cases at very high levels and new vaccines still several weeks away, we asked experts for their advice on when and where to wear a mask,” the teaser reads.

The authors note the high levels of COVID-19 in the U.S. and abroad and indicate that “experts” say mask-wearing is an important tool to stay healthy during travel.

“Even if you’re the only person wearing one on a train or at an airport, a mask continues to offer protection — provided you wear it properly, which means covering both your nose and your mouth,” the Times says.