For an company whose success relies upon largely on convincing the general public that it’s secure to congregate and transfer concerning the nation and world, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority does appear, from the skin trying in, to be caught in duck-and-cover mode on the subject of COVID response.
In at the very least the case of month-to-month board of administrators’ conferences, nevertheless, which may be about to alter.
The authority’s Sept. 21 board assembly, its first since June, was once more held in a “digital” atmosphere. Whereas the physique met for a lot of instances in individual or in a hybrid mode within the spring, it reverted again to on-line earlier than the summer season break and remained there in September.
“We’re persevering with to protect in opposition to . . . any unfold,” the company’s president/CEO, Jack Potter, mentioned on the assembly, noting that masking stays required within the company’s workplaces.
Potter mentioned the authority remains to be reporting excessive case numbers amongst workers, and mentioned the restrictions are designed to advertise well being and security among the many workforce.
On the identical assembly, nevertheless, authority chairman William Sudow mentioned it was his “expectation” that the board will meet in individual in October except “there are antagonistic developments.”
In-person attendance can be restricted to board members and workers; the general public would have the ability to view the assembly on-line.
A federal choose in April dominated that the federal authorities’s masks mandate referring to airports and business plane was an overreach of authority. Whereas some airports maintained masking necessities for vacationers, most (together with these within the Washington space) formally or informally dropped them comparatively rapidly.
However there have been stragglers.
Earlier this month, New York’s Democratic governor – locked in what might evolve right into a surprisingly tight election battle – formally eradicated that state’s masks mandate for public-transportation services, together with airports, though each compliance and enforcement had been largely ignored for months.
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