COVID: US drops mask mandate for airlines, trains

The United States will stop enforcing a mask mandate on public transportation after a Florida judge ruled that the directive, first brought in 14 months ago, was unlawful. 

All major carriers in the country, including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines, and national rail operator Amtrak, relaxed their mask mandates immediately after the announcement.

Last week, US health officials extended the mask mandate to May 3, keeping in place facial covering requirements for travelers on airplanes and trains, as well as in taxis, ride-share vehicles and transit hubs. They said they would need time to assess the impact of a recent rise in cases attributed to airborne coronavirus.

That decision faced heavy pushback from Republican lawmakers and interest groups who had called for an end to the mandate. 

Here are the latest major developments on coronavirus from around the world:

Europe

Germany has recorded 22,483 new infections, taking the total number of COVID cases to 23,459,628, according to the latest figures from the Robert Koch Institute for infectious diseases. With seven fatalities reported, the country’s total death toll has risen to 132,960.

Asia

China's Shanghai reported seven new COVID deaths on Tuesday, a day after the city revealed its first virus deaths. 

A lockdown has kept many of Shanghai's 25 million residents restricted to their homes starting last month, as average daily cases topped 25,000, a massive blow to China's "zero-COVID" strategy.

However, despite recording hundreds of thousands of cases, the city's total COVID death toll stands at 10. 

Australian cricketer Mitch Marsh has been admitted to an Indian hospital after testing positive for coronavirus, his Indian Premier League (IPL) team Delhi Capitals said. He was one of a "few" people in the team's "bio bubble" to test positive. However, the rest were asymptomatic.

"The Delhi Capitals medical team is closely monitoring Marsh's condition," the team said in a short statement.

Americas

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has dropped its "Do Not Travel" COVID-19 recommendations for close to 90 countries.

This comes after the CDC last week said it was revising its travel recommendations, reserving its Level 4 travel health notices "for special circumstances, such as rapidly escalating case trajectory or extremely high case counts."

see/jsi (Reuters, AP, AFP, dpa)