Rumors are all over social media that Coronavirus restrictions are returning. Is there any truth to the rumors?

 

An image of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid. NIAD. 

This post is going to be a bit different because it's not really a news story yet. If you have been social media for the last couple of days you probably have heard people reacting to the idea that Coronavirus restrictions and mask mandates would be returning over the fall and winter months. This would, of course, be a huge deal given the general lack of threat from the virus at this point and the fact that even President Biden has declared the pandemic over. 

I was extremely skeptical of these rumors at first as the origin of the rumor was literally Alex Jones and Infowars. Adding to that already large red flag is the fact that the report was based on anonymous sources and not anyone going on the record. I have always said that reports with only anonymous sources should be treated with skepticism at best and scorn at worst. The fact that Jones was the only one reporting this and no one else was either was the third strike and I considered the story fake news. 

But since then there were a couple things that might be some truth to the rumor. Earlier this week we found two major cases of mask mandates and other Coronavirus restrictions returning. First, a college in Atlanta says they are bringing back mandates for two weeks despite cases in the area being low, in the "green" area for the local Covid severity index. Shortly after a major Hollywood Studio announced that they are bringing back mask mandates and restrictions as well. Again, cases in Hollywood are still low and it makes very little sense for the studio to do this. 

Those rumors are confirmed at least, but other than that there is a lot of other rumors spreading on social media. That Biden has hired a bunch of people for enforcing these restrictions and such. Those rumors do not appear to have any media backing besides the original reports on Infowars and random nobodies on Twitter. Does that mean that the rumors are confirmed false? Absolutely not, but it's important to note that unlike the two cases with media reports confirming them, we don't actually know for sure either way. 

I'm of two minds on this myself. I honestly can't believe that Joe Biden would be that stupid. All but a few die hard people still wearing masks have moved on from the Pandemic, most people haven't even thought about the pandemic for more than a year now. Bringing it back now for essentially no reason, the Coronavirus disease now is nothing more than a bad cold or weak flu for the vast majority of people, would be massively unpopular, would damage the economy and would give Republicans a major issue to run on in 2024. It could even lead to violence as the one thing everyone on Twitter says is that they won't go along with it this time. Biden has consistently made absolutely terrible decisions throughout his presidency but I would find it hard to believe that even he would be so dumb to think this would work out from him. 

On the other hand, the supposed "return" of the Coronavirus (which never went away in the first place but is now a non-issue) and the associated restrictions would ensure that the various scams and rule changes that occurred during the 2020 elections could come back with a vengeance. I have said for a long time that given how terrible Biden has been and will continue to be as president there is little way he can win legitimately. Bringing back these restrictions and mail in voting would be an easy way to rig the vote. 

If true it would likely backfire on the Biden administration. The Governors of red states would not go along with a 2nd round of lockdowns and the return of mask mandates and neither would a large number of people. People would be absolutely furious as well and most would see it as nothing else than naked political ambition and would react accordingly. 

Of course there is a real chance of this whole thing being bunk. It is Alex Jones and a couple of fairly mild examples in deep blue areas where the coronavirus panic never really went away. And it is a convenient distraction for a lot of news stories that Americans should absolutely be talking about, including the East Palestine train derailment, the debacle that is the Ukraine war, the Maui Fires and even the UFO hearing last month. Not to mention the GOP presidential race. Getting angry over a bunch of restrictions that might not even happen would be a meaningful distraction...