CNN medical expert Dr. Leana Wen said that it might be time to lift mask mandates — not because they don’t work or because the threat has passed, but in order to “preserve public health authority for when it’s needed again.”

Wen explained that she was not saying it was a good idea for people to stop wearing masks, but that governments needed to ease up and allow people to make the decisions for themselves — arguing that people were more likely to accept later restrictions coming from “public health authorities” if they were first given back some of their liberty and autonomy.