An uptick in cases of COVID-19 is bringing with it a new round of political fights as Senate Republicans challenge the nascent resurgence of pandemic-era mandates.
Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) attempted to pass a bill on Thursday that would ban mask mandates for schools and public transportation, but his request for unanimous consent was blocked by Democrats. Hours earlier, a resolution to repeal a vaccine mandate for Senate pages, introduced by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), met a similar fate.
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In one sense, COVID-19 as a political flashpoint never went away. Republicans are still attempting to reinstate service members discharged from the military over their refusal to take the vaccine, and just before the recess, the State Department agreed to hand over documents on the origins of the coronavirus after Paul placed a hold on dozens of agency nominees.
But the issue is far less salient three years after the pandemic began. Hospitalizations reached an all-time low in June, due to a combination of natural immunity and vaccination but also the virus becoming less lethal as it mutates.
President Joe Biden ended the national emergency in April, and today, very few localities impose mask mandates.
Republicans fear that is all about to change, however, as the country heads into the fall, when respiratory infections become more common. Already, cases are beginning to rise, and a handful of schools nationally are requiring students to mask up.
That's a far cry from the Biden administration announcing a return to masking, but Vance frames his ban on mandates as a way to preempt what he calls a "localized overreaction" to the rise in cases.
"I don't think, thank God, we're gonna have writ large the massive social freakout that we had summer of 2020," he told the Washington Examiner on Thursday after his unanimous consent request failed. "But I do think that you're gonna see it in certain pockets of the country unless we sort of speak up and push back against it."
Republicans argue masks do little to stop the spread of COVID-19 — respirators like N-95s do slow transmission, while cloth or incorrectly worn masks provide less protection. And much of their criticism of vaccine requirements, particularly those for children, focuses on rare but serious complications such as heart inflammation in young adults.
This is the case Paul made on Thursday in arguing against the mandate for high schoolers in the Senate page program.
Democrats, for their part, view the mandates as tools that save lives and prevent serious disease.
But the debate at its core is a philosophical one whose dividing line is whether matters of public health should be left to individuals or those in a position to shape policy.
Democrats are not calling for new mandates, but they hold in high esteem the medical professionals whom Republicans have spent years vilifying as heavy-handed and hypocritical, chief among them Dr. Anthony Fauci, the COVID czar under former President Donald Trump.
Should they advise that masks return in the fall, Republicans will view the guidance through the lens of conservative distrust for Washington bureaucrats.
"There's going to be a sense that this is to control people more than it is to control disease," said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the ranking Republican on the Senate's Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.
Republicans aren't waiting until then to make political hay out of it. Outside of the Senate, presidential candidates from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) to ex-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley are vowing to fight the return of "COVID authoritarianism."
The messaging has come out of left field for Democrats, who say the pandemic has receded as a concern for constituents.
"I don't catch many people back in Connecticut talking to me about masks and COVID requirements anymore," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said.
He surmised it may be a tactic to rile up the base. But more than that, Republicans hope it becomes a wedge for independents and soft Democrats whose children fell behind during the pandemic.
"It was a disaster for kids, for their education, for their mental health," Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who co-sponsored Vance's bill, said. "And so, you know, parents — they're furious about it, and they absolutely don't want to do it over."
"You know, who wants COVID masking 2.0?" he added. "Nobody."
Democrats dismiss the idea that it will endanger their colleagues defending seats in red or battleground states next year.
"I don't know if some unforeseen thing is going to happen, but as of right now, I can't imagine that it's going to be a major issue in the election," said Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Murphy noted that Democrats won both chambers of Congress and the White House in 2020 despite the coronavirus lockdowns.
Yet some Democrats have proven sensitive to the topic. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), running for a second term in tourism-heavy Nevada, has repeatedly voted against mask mandates, and 11 Democrats voted to end the national emergency in November, before Biden notified Congress he would allow it to expire.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), elected to a full term in the swing state of Arizona last year, doubted the unanimous consent requests of Vance and Paul would register with voters who he said are far more focused on concerns like the heat wave out in the Southwest.
"I don't think they care about any unanimous consent thing somebody offers up here," he said.
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But Vance believes pandemic fatigue has shifted public sentiment to Republicans' benefit. He signaled he would push his measure again at a later date.
"Look, I think three years into this, most Americans are just over COVID," he said. "Not that it's not bad, not that it didn't kill a lot of people, because it certainly did. But it's here with us. It sucks, but we have to deal with it and live with the risk. So, I certainly think the politics are in our favor on this."