As fall approaches and another election season nears, there is renewed interest amongst various state and private organizations to resume the coercive COVID-19 protocols of yesteryear — this despite the fallout of the last go-around, the various outstanding doubts about efficacy of such measures, the CDC's estimate that 96.7% of the population over the age of 16 has antibodies, and the non-severity of the so-called "Eris" variant.

According to The Hill, among the organizations now reintroducing masks requirements are: Hollywood movie studio Lionsgate, per the insistence by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health; Kaiser Permanente at its facility in Santa Rosa, California; Upstate Medical's University and Community General hospitals; New Jersey's Rutgers University; and Georgia's Morris Brown College.

The Daily Mail reported that there has also been some indication that the Transportation Security Administration under President Joe Biden's Department of Homeland Security is considering reintroducing face-mask requirements on airplanes, although the TSA has suggested the "rumors are false."

This sudden desire to hide faces is the result of four new hospital admissions for every 100,000 people nationwide in the week ending Aug. 12, reported CNN.

That 0.004% of the population is going to hospital with what is in the vast majority of cases a nonlethal respiratory issue has prompted doctors like Robert Wachter, professor and chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Francisco, to state, "If you're trying to be careful, it's time to whip out the mask again."

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a cardiologist and professor at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, said, "If you’re a caregiver for somebody who is at increased risk of complication following infection, then I think you should also consider putting a mask on in public places."

A peer-reviewed meta-analysis of various studies published earlier this year in the highly esteemed Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews called into question the value in whipping out masks again.

In a review of 12 trials comparing wearing medical masks with wearing no masks to prevent the spread of illnesses like COVID-19, the researchers determined that "[w]earing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference to the outcome of influenza-like illness (ILI)/COVID-19 like illness compared to not wearing masks."

While the researchers noted that the evidence suggested N95/P2 respirators were better at protecting against influenza-like illnesses than medical masks, this evidence too was placed in doubt.

The researchers concluded with some certainty that the "pooled results of [randomized controlled trials] did not show a clear reduction in respiratory viral infection with the use of medical/surgical masks. There were no clear differences between the use of medical/surgical masks compared with N95/P2 respirators in healthcare workers when used in routine care to reduce respiratory viral infection."

These findings appear to run contrary to former CDC Director Robert Redfield's September 2020 claim that masks are the "most important, powerful public-health tool we have," or his successor, Rochelle Walensky's November 2021 claim that mask-wearing "reduc(es) your chance of infection by more than 80%."

Regardless of the efficacy of masks, there may be greater resistance to their adoption this time around, even by medical professionals.

Dr. Albert Ko, a professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, told ABC News, "I don't see that as something that we're likely going to be adopting."

The chief infection control officer for Tufts Medicine, Dr. Shira Doron, made clear that the fearmongering is unwarranted based on current COVID-19 infections, stating, "An upswing is not a surge; it's not even a wave. ... What we're seeing is a very gradual and small upward trajectory of cases and hospitalizations, without deaths really going along, which is great news."

"My hospital has had between zero and three patients who have tested positive for COVID any given day since May," Doron told ABC News. "So, all week, it's been one. If tomorrow, there were two, you'd call that a 100% increase, which sounds so big, but ... it's not appropriate to use percentage terms when you're talking about increases that start really small."

As masks make a comeback, albeit presently in isolated instances, the Western medical establishment appears to be putting a positive spin on lockdowns.

Britain's Royal Society just put out a report singing the praises of lockdowns, social distancing, school closures, and limits on gatherings, calling them the "most effective" form of non-pharmaceutical interventions.

The report concluded that "there is every reason to think that the application of combinations of [non-pharmaceutical interventions] will be important in future pandemics."

Whereas the Cochrane Review suggested that the downsides of mask-wearing were not altogether clear — although studies have revealed the adverse impact they have on toddlers, particularly on their communication skills — there is overwhelming evidence that lockdowns had a devastating impact, especially on youths.

A peer-reviewed 2021 article in the journal Frontiers in Public Health noted that lockdowns were five to 10 times "more harmful to public health ... than COVID-19 can be" at a time when the virus was more potent.

Lockdowns have had a calamitous impact on: the economy; eating behavior; physical activity; academic achievement; and on mental health, especially among children and teens, whose suicide rates, a recent study indicated, are "closely tied" to in-person schooling.

Just the News highlighted how the Biden administration's April announcement that it was pouring $5 billion into developing additional COVID-19 vaccines and treatments did not mention masks or social distancing, but nevertheless signaled the Department of Health and Human Services was still focused on the virus.

Some lawmakers in Washington have speculated more statist alarmism is on the way.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted, "I keep hearing whispers of COVID restrictions coming back. Nope, not going to happen. We're not complying with that."

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