When Joe Biden issued an executive order this week requiring mask-wearing on federal properties, it was framed as the least controversial provision he would issue early in his presidency.

“It’s not a political statement,” he said, “it’s a patriotic act.”

“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,” Psaki said.

Pushing against scientific consensus, Florida state Rep. Anthony Sabatini, who has filed more than a dozen local lawsuits to battle mask mandates in counties across the state, challenged the notion that masks actually reduce the spread of the virus. He pointed to California, where compliance is high even as cases of Covid-19 have soared. He also insisted that there was no practical point to it, since, he argued, most federal properties are already requiring masks and cast Biden’s move as political.

“I think he’s the guy that it’s all about optics it’s not really about results,” Sabatini said. “He wants to get his message across that he cares. He cares more about looking like he’s doing something.”

Biden advisers don’t necessarily dispute the idea that the point of the order is not the mandate itself but the optics and message it sends. They say Biden felt it was important for Americans to hear a clear message on the benefits of mask-wearing — with one White House official saying there was “no unifying standard” under Donald Trump. But the edict is also part of what they described as an all-hands-on-deck effort to contain the spread of the virus at a time that Biden has repeatedly warned would be a “dark winter.” And the more compliance with mask wearing, Biden advisers say, the more the country has an opportunity to drive down the spread of the virus.