Visitors and employees alike are required to wear facemasks on national park grounds starting Tuesday, following President Joe Biden’s recent executive order mandating masks on federal property.
“To protect the health of those who live, work and visit our national parks and facilities, and in support of the President’s Executive Order on Protecting the Federal Workforce and Requiring Mask-Wearing, the National Park Service (NPS) today implemented a mask requirement for employees, visitors, partners and contractors,” read a Tuesday press release from NPS.
“Wearing a mask around others, physical distancing, and washing your hands are the simplest and most effective public health measures to help stop the spread of COVID-19,” said NPS Office of Public Health Director Captain Sara Newman. “Getting outside and enjoying our public lands is essential to improving mental and physical health, but we all need to work together to recreate responsibly.”
Those at the national park will have to wear masks at all times while in park facilities or on park property. Masks must be worn even outside if adequate social distancing cannot be maintained.
“Working with public health officials and following the latest science and guidance, we can make national parks safer for employees, visitors and partners,” NPS Deputy Director Shawn Benge said. “We will continue to evaluate operations and make appropriate modifications to visitor services as needed.”
Biden signed an executive order last week mandating masks on federal property. As The Daily Wire reported:
The executive order, titled Promoting COVID-19 Safety In Domestic And International Travel, calls on various cabinet agencies to use existing authority to implement the new mandate on applicable methods of public transportation, which can include at airports, on commercial aircraft, on trains, on public maritime vessels and ferries, and on intercity bus services. However, it’s not clear how the Biden administration plans to enforce the mandate.
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain previously said in a memo that Biden would be implementing an interstate-travel mask mandate at the start of his term, in addition to requiring masks on federal property, reported The Associated Press. (Biden later addressed members of the media at the Lincoln Memorial while not wearing a mask himself). He has also called on Americans to wear masks for the next 100 days as part of a “100 Day Masking Challenge.”
Later that day, Biden took flak for addressing media at the Lincoln Memorial, which is on federal property, without a mask. When pressed on the issue afterward, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded by pointing out that Biden was “celebrating.”
“I, I think Steve, he was celebrating an evening uh, uh, of a historic day in our country, and certainly he signed the mask mandate because it’s a way to send a message [to] the American public about the importance of, uh, wearing masks, how it can save tens of thousands of lives,” Psaki said. “We take a number of COVID precautions as you know here in terms of testing, social distancing, mask wearing ourselves as we do every single day, but I don’t know that I have more for you on it than that.”
Related: Press Secretary Jen Psaki On Biden Allegedly Violating His Own Mask Order: He Was ‘Celebrating’