As Americans defend a COVID-19 outbreak last summer and prepare for the rollout of a new vaccine, Republicans are raising familiar fears that government-imposed shutdowns and mask mandates will be next.
It’s a favorite topic among some of the Republican Party’s leading presidential candidates. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters that other people are “resorting to” COVID-19 restrictions and “we want to respond. “South Carolina Senator Tim Scott posted online that the “radical left” seeks to reinstate school closures and conditions. And former President Donald Trump suggested congressional Republicans save Biden’s leadership from reinstating “mandates, lockdowns or restrictions of any kind” related to COVID-19.
“Radical Democrats are racing to reignite COVID hysteria,” Trump told supporters in Rapid City, South Dakota, during a recent crusade walkout. Are there elections coming up, for any possibility?
While some schools and colleges have transitional mask requirements, there is no indication that federal or state leaders are contemplating widespread COVID-19 mask restrictions, needs, or mandates. The administrations of several Democratic governors have denied that such measures are even under consideration. The dominant feeling is to leave decisions to individuals.
“The Murphy administration is not enforcing public fitness restrictions or mask requirements similar to COVID-19,” said Christi Peace, a spokesman for New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy.
“There is no imminent mass shutdown or requirement for New Mexico,” said Jodi McGinnis Porter, spokeswoman for the New Mexico Department of Public Health.
It’s largely the same message from the offices of Democratic governors from several other states who responded to a survey to determine whether COVID-19-related mandates were being considered. This included Connecticut, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan and Oregon.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, made clear his opposition to COVID-19 lockdowns, as well as mask and vaccine mandates, in his crusade last year: “This is an area where I think other people got bad,” he said. School and business closures. His workplace echoed the same sentiment in his reaction to the AP this week, saying, “The administration’s view is that we don’t want to impose restrictions. “
In the two most populous Democratic-led states, California and New York, the state fitness department recommends getting vaccinated daily, but does not impose any requirements related to vaccination or mask wearing. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul was asked. At a press convention Wednesday on whether he would require masks or vaccinations: “We’re in a position where we’re seeing low numbers; These movements are not easy for us today,” he said.
Elisabeth Shephard, a spokeswoman for Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon, said the federal public health emergency similar to the virus outbreak ended in May.
“COVID-19 lockdowns and mask mandates are currently being discussed and the governor has no intention of instituting those measures,” he said.
However, this misleading narrative has proven to be a convenient scare tactic for Republicans in their efforts to court the electorate that sees Democrats as oppressive leaders of their freedoms.
Republican presidential hopefuls who insisted on that message last week joined a chorus of conservative lawmakers and far-right pundits who have spent the past month warning that tyrannical measures against COVID-19 are on the horizon.
In August, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claimed that an “anonymous high-level TSA official” and an anonymous source “linked to the Border Patrol” had told him that Transportation Security Administration workers would soon have to wear masks and that COVID-19 closures would return in December.
The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and PreventionU. S. officials said those claims were “totally false” but were amplified by influential Republicans, adding Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who posted in X that she had not written the TSA easy answers.
Later last month, when a black liberal arts school in Atlanta announced it had reinstated a transitional mask-wearing mandate in reaction to student infections, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. , posted in X that “Americans have had enough of COVID hysteria. “BREAK!
The school, Morris Brown College, has since eliminated that requirement, but maintains policies in place, adding contact tracing and temperature checks on campus.
Part of the conservative outcry came in the wake of President Joe Biden’s comments last month about the recent surge in COVID-19, which has led to a surge in hospitalizations and deaths across the country, though it’s a fraction of what the country has noticed beyond outbreaks. UPS.
“In fact, this morning I signed a proposal where we want to present to Congress a request for increased investment for a new vaccine that is needed and that works,” Biden told reporters on a stopover in South Lake Tahoe. “And provisionally, we have not yet definitively made a decision; Provisionally, it is advised that everyone will probably be advised to receive it, whether they have received it or not. “
On Tuesday, the CDC approved the new vaccines for anyone 6 months of age or older, and the vaccines will be available in pharmacies, gyms and some doctors’ offices starting this week.
Still, Biden’s leadership has no plans to put new mandates for vaccines or masks in place, according to a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the administration’s thinking.
Mask reinstatement needs across the country have so far been limited to a handful of local schools and businesses. One example is an elementary school in Maryland that required students exposed to an outbreak in a classroom to wear masks at school for 10 days.
But these isolated measures provoked outrage from conservatives who used them to energize their supporters.
Sen. J. D. Vance of Ohio last week introduced the Freedom to Breathe Act, a bill that would prevent the federal government from enforcing mask orders on domestic flights, public transportation and schools. His call for unanimous passage of the bill failed, with Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts calling it a “red herring” meant to distract GOP attention from “gimmicks over people. “
Greene, the Georgia Republican, introduced another important bill in the House. He said he would not vote in favor of a government shutdown unless the government ended coronavirus-related mandates, which have already been largely canceled.
Disinformation experts propose a strategy for dealing with Republicans’ disturbing claims about the closeness of their terms: reminding the electorate of the negative emotions they had at the beginning of the pandemic and associating them with Democrats.
“Wearing a mask doesn’t have to be similar to anxiety, fear, anger and other strong emotions, but for many other people it is,” said Lisa Fazio, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University who studies the spread of false claims. No one needs to convey those emotions, which is why Republicans try to link those negative emotions and memories to their political opponents.
Meanwhile, some of the Republican-led states, where heads of state are denouncing COVID-19 measures, have borne the brunt of the recent surge. The data shows that Mississippi recorded a COVID-19 death rate consistent with 10,000 citizens in the last week of August.
Earlier this week, the state’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, vowed to block any blanket restrictions, posting online that the state would “live in self-determination, with concern imposed from above. “
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