A number of health officials and researchers made predictions on whether mask mandates or lockdown orders will be enacted en masse in the coming months due to COVID-19.
As for lockdowns, the doctor added that he doesn’t “know of anyone who’s even thinking of lockdowns, let alone mentioning them.”
Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, told another news outlet that he believes it’s also unlikely state, local, or federal mandates will be re-instated. However, one local judge in Dallas County, Alabama, recently issued a mask mandate for government offices that interact with the public more than a week ago.
One reason is due to the bevy of lawsuits that were filed against local, state, and federal governments over various COVID-19 mandates, including for vaccine requirements to work. The Supreme Court in early 2022 struck down a controversial federal rule announced by President Joe Biden that would direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to go after private businesses with 100 or more employees if they don’t comply with a vaccine mandate.
Legislation that has been passed in a number of states also makes it more difficult to reimpose mask or vaccine mandates as well as stay-at-home orders, another professor said in the Politifact article. For example, the Arkansas Legislature last week voted to prohibit local governments from mandating COVID-19 vaccines, while the bill was later signed into law by Gov. Sarah Sanders, a Republican.
“This situation creates uncertainty about the government’s legal authority to impose some of the kinds of orders that were imposed in 2020 and 2021,” Wendy Parmet, faculty director of the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern University, told the outlet.
Another health official noted that it’s likely private businesses, schools, and medical facilities will bring back mask mandates before the government issues them.
“Some hospitals, schools, and private businesses have brought back masking requirements, usually in response to increased cases or clusters and local epidemiologic trends,” Hannah Newman, the senior director of infection prevention at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, told Health.com.
And the federal government’s public face for much of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told ABC News earlier in September that he believes it’s unlikely that the government would reimpose a mask mandate for certain settings such as travel or transportation hubs.
“I would be extremely surprised if we would see that,” the former federal health official said, referring to a mask mandate. “There may be local organizations that may require masks, but I think what we’re going to see mostly are, if the cases go up, that there might be recommendations, not mandates. There’s a big difference there.”
The federal government ended its COVID-19 public health emergency in May 2023. A mask mandate that was imposed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for public transportation was struck down by a federal judge in 2022.
COVID-19 Symptoms Milder
The comments made by health officials this week come as some doctors said they have observed COVID-19 symptoms becoming milder, making the virus nearly indistinguishable from allergies, influenza, or the common cold.“It isn’t the same typical symptoms that we were seeing before. It’s a lot of congestion, sometimes sneezing, usually a mild sore throat,” Dr. Erick Eiting, vice chair of operations for emergency medicine at New York’s Mount Sinai, told NBC News on Sept. 16.
“Just about everyone who I’ve seen has had really mild symptoms,” Dr. Eiting said, referring to urgent care COVID-19 patients at his hospital.“The only way that we knew that it was COVID was because we happened to be testing them.”
