A roundup of some of the most popular but completely untrue stories and visuals of the week. None of these are legit, even though they were shared widely on social media. The Associated Press checked them out. Here are the facts:
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Conspiracy theorist spreads false information about the return of COVID-19 mandates
CLAIM: Transportation Security Administration managers were told on Aug. 15 that by mid-September they, along with airport employees, will again be required to wear face masks and by mid-October the policy will apply to travelers as well. Further, the managers were told that COVID-19 lockdowns will return by December.
THE FACTS: No such announcement was made to TSA managers, an agency spokesperson told the AP. A spokesperson for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued a now-expired travel mask mandate in 2021, also refuted the rumors. The claim originated on the Aug. 18 episode of “The Alex Jones Show,” where its namesake host said an anonymous “high-level manager in the TSA” and an unnamed “Border Patrol-connected” source told him about the alleged announcement. Jones is known for spreading conspiracy theories. A tweet with the video, which had more than 38,000 likes and 20,000 shares as of Friday, claimed the supposed announcement was “due to a new ‘dangerous variant’ out of Canada.” But TSA Press Secretary Robert Langston told the AP that managers at the agency did not receive any such instructions last week. Benjamin Haynes, a spokesperson for the CDC, confirmed that reports of upcoming lockdowns are “utterly false.” Neither Jones, nor a representative of his show, responded to a request for comment before publication. Two new COVID-19 variants — EG.5 and BA.2.86 — have recently emerged. As of Aug. 23, the latter had only been reported in Denmark, South Africa, Israel, the U.S. and the U.K, according to the CDC. Health Canada confirmed to the AP that as of Aug. 18, no cases had been detected in the country. Canada has seen a steady increase of EG.5 cases, but the World Health Organization reported in early August that its risk to global public health is low. In early 2021, the CDC issued an order requiring people to wear masks on public transportation, including airplanes, and in transportation hubs, that was implemented and enforced by the TSA. A federal judge in Florida struck down the mandate in April 2022, finding that the CDC failed to justify the order and that it did not follow proper rulemaking procedures. Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University who also specializes in constitutional law, told the AP that the CDC could reissue the order, but he said it would likely be immediately challenged and struck down in a lower court, a decision which would probably then be upheld by the Supreme Court. The CDC has authorization from Congress to issue certain orders if they are necessary to prevent infectious diseases from spreading between states, he said. It can also make recommendations. But the agency has no enforcement power, leaving implementation and enforcement to the states, which is why pandemic-related restrictions varied across the U.S. “They don’t even have the power to do the kinds of things that are being suggested,” Gostin explained. Similar limits apply to the president and to Congress. Gostin said that if the president or Congress tried to institute a nationwide lockdown, “they’d be slapped down by the courts in a minute” because of restrictions on federal police power. While COVID-19 hospital admissions are rising — there were 12,613 for the week ending Aug. 12 — they are far lower than than past peaks, like the 44,000 weekly hospital admissions in early January, the nearly 45,000 in late July 2022, or the 150,000 admissions during the omicron surge of January 2022. Still, some schools and businesses are reinstating mask mandates and other restrictions. Leana Wen, a professor of public health at George Washington University, told the AP that the fact that COVID-19 has become an endemic virus is another reason future lockdowns or restrictions at any level of government are highly unlikely. An endemic virus is one that has a constant presence in a geographic area. “Eliminating it is not possible,” she said. “And so having measures that are aimed at a societal level, containment is not practical and won’t achieve the aim that we initially thought was possible in early 2020.”