The high-profile appeal of the case seemed to suggest that the Biden administration might want to fight for a higher court reversal of the ruling striking down the mask mandate on airplanes, trains and other public transportation.
The administration may be buying time and thinking about trying to erase the ruling that would allow it to protect the powers of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Several outside specialists said that the Biden administration was letting days pass without seeking a stay of the ruling, the step that could most immediately resurrect the mask requirement.
Lawrence O. Gostin, a Georgetown University professor of global health law, advised the White House on the case. It seems less important to them to quickly restore the mask mandate.
The administration has stopped wearing masks that are critical to the fight against the Pandemic. President Biden and other top officials have presented masks as a matter of personal choice, not federal policy.
The exception is the requirement to mask on public transportation, put in place soon after Mr. Biden took office. The C.D.C. had left the possibility of extending it again, even after the federal judge struck it down on Monday because of the rising infections nationwide.
The White House was appealing because the C.D.C. must have the essential public health authority to make critical decisions, according to the principal deputy White House press secretary.
That is what is at stake right now, she said.
The administration appealed the ruling while not seeking an immediate stay because the case turns on whether the C.D.C. was justified in being enacted as an emergency measure. The government would have tried to keep the mask order in place if it had tried, legal specialists say.
Stephen I. Vladeck, a University of Texas at Austin law professor who specializes in federal courts, said that if the government really wanted to fight its appeal all the way to a decision on whether to overturn Judge Mizelle, they messed this up.
If the Biden legal team was trying to protect the C.D.C.'s power with no real intention of trying to get a higher court to restore the mask mandate, then the failure to seek a stay may make sense.
He pointed to an obscure legal doctrine under which if a case is on appeal when the dispute is unrelated to the litigation, an appeals court can order the district court to dismiss the case.
He said that the government may be giving itself that option after the mandate expires on May 3.
The agency's regulatory powers to protect against the interstate spread of infectious diseases were put forward in a cramped interpretation by the judge. She and a majority of the appeals court that oversees her court were appointed by President Donald J. Trump, whose legal advisers openly promoted their search for potential judges who would be skeptical of the power of regulatory agencies.
Attorney General Garland was asked by a reporter on Thursday why the Justice Department had not sought an immediate stay.
The reason for appealing is that the C.D.C. has clear authority for the mask mandate, and it is necessary for the health of the American people.
The standards for winning a request to stay a judicial order can be higher than for an appeal, according to a law professor. She said that fighting for one and losing it would raise particular risks of an appeals court decision that could take a similarly narrow view of what the C.D.C. may do in a public health crisis.
Losing sends a very strong message, and not just for the matter that happens to be at hand, but for other cases related to public health and safety.
A recent poll shows that 56 percent of Americans support the requirement that masks be worn on planes, trains, buses and subways. The airlines want the requirement to end for a while. The administration has been moving away from masking as an essential tool for weeks.
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said it was up to each person to decide what to do, when asked on April 11 why Mr. Biden wore a mask the previous weekend.
We all make decisions. She said that some people in here are wearing masks to make them more comfortable, or that they chose to that day, because they will be around family members or others who are vulnerable.
In February, the C.D.C. changed its guidelines in a way that made it less likely that a county would be considered high risk. People who are particularly vulnerable to severe illness from the virus should talk to their health care providers about whether to wear a mask.
The agency is focused on getting people information and tools they need to make their own decisions, according to a senior epidemiologist. She said that those choices should be based on their own risk levels and tolerance.
The reporting was done by Sheryl Gay Stolberg andKatie Benner.
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