[eddiecalzone]

The Constitution was ratified before anyone accepted that germs cause disease. Even if it weren't, I doubt they'd have had the foresight to predict the vast number of radicalized buffoons who would demand the "freedom" to needlessly expose fellow citizens to a virus that's killed 250k people.

[dragonwriter]

> The Constitution was ratified before anyone accepted that germs cause disease.

And yet state regulations (even once the Bill of Rights was generally -- though not, I note, explicitly) applied to states via the 14th Amendment requiring people to cover body parts in public to protect some vague combination of public health and public morality have remained in place in all 50 states.

I don't think "cover your nose and mouth in public" mandates (by the states) have any federal constitutional vulnerability as long as "cover your genitals and anus in public" mandates are widely recognized as enforceable.

Federal mandates for mask wearing in public generally would probably have to be conditional mandates on the states and/or have travel/commerce consequences for noncompliance to be secure (mandates on the states with state-level travel/commerce consequences being the most secure), though.