A federal judge overturned the U.S. government mask mandate on airplanes, trains and other public transportation, dealing a blow to the Biden administration as fights continue nationwide over policies tied to the Covid-19 pandemic.

U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Tampa, Florida, vacated the mask requirement nationwide and directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reverse the policy put in place in February 2021. The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the Health Freedom Defense Fund.

Mizelle, an appointee of former president Donald Trump, ruled that the CDC had incorrectly described the mask mandate as a form of “sanitation” to justify its authority in the matter.

“Wearing a mask cleans nothing,” Mizelle wrote. “At most, it traps virus droplets. But it neither ‘sanitizes’ the person wearing the mask or ‘sanitizes’ the conveyance.”

The judge also found that the CDC had gone too far by issuing a regulation that “acts on individuals directly” rather than just their “property interests.”

“Since the mask mandate regulates an individual’s behavior—wearing a mask—it imposes directly on liberty interests,” she wrote.

The ruling comes as states across the U.S. have eased restrictions following an overall drop in case numbers from a January peak caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. Almost 1 million Americans have died of Covid in the past two years, and hundreds more continue to die every day.

Florida and other Republican-led states in March filed a similar lawsuit seeking to overturn the mask mandate, a fight that pitted President Joe Biden against Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a fierce critic of pandemic mandates. The states accused the administration of ignoring “loss after loss” in court and having “outright disdain” for the limits of its power.

The CDC announced last week that it would extend the ban by two weeks, to May 3, as it weighs data on Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations driven by the BA.2 subvariant. The extension is shorter than previous ones, signaling that the agency was nearing a position to lift the mandate altogether.

The Justice Department and the CDC didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

The case is Health Freedom Defense Fund v. Joseph Biden, 21-cv-1693, U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida (Tampa).