From Freedom to Fear: Philadelphia Reinstating Indoor Mask Mandates

COVID-19 cases are reportedly on the rise in Philadelphia, so that can only mean one thing. It's time for more fear-mongering and masks.

Despite the fact there's no hard evidence that masks keep viruses at bay -- or for that matter, that COVID cases are actually on the rise -- Philadelphia is re-imposing its indoor mandate, starting April 18.

City officials made the announcement on Monday, indicating that Philadelphia had reached the "Level 2: Mask Precautions stage" of a four-tiered COVID response system.

“We hope by having folks whenever they’re in public, indoor spaces we can get ahead of the wave and keep it from reaching a peak like we saw in January with the omicron variant,” Philadelphia heath commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said. “If we can do that, we can literally save the lives of vulnerable Philadelphians. At this level of transmission, we do not believe that there is any reason to panic or enjoy any activities that we enjoy and are important to use. Our city remains open.”

Bettigole added that the city will offer businesses a week-long "educational period" on masks before the mandate takes effect.

Mask mandates across the world have proven ineffective at slowing reports of virus cases, as repeatedly relayed by Ian Miller, author of Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates.

Most recently, Miller used New York City as an example to illustrate his larger point.

Miller went on to say that this type of misinformation "is quite literally dangerous."

Philadelphia, which lifted the indoor mask mandate a little more than a month ago, becomes the first major U.S. city to reinstitute it.

This comes after Bettigole revealed that those hospitalized with COVID symptoms in Philadelphia remains extremely low, just 46 people.

“Recently, we’ve been watching COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise in several European countries and in some places, in the U.S, and now we’re starting to see cases here in Philadelphia rise,” Bettigole said. “This looks like we may be at the start of a new COVID wave like Europe just saw.”