The return of COVID mandates?

Will it ever end? Or are we in "the new abnormal?"

That's what Aaron Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and fellow and director of the Program in Bioethics and American Democracy at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, argued in his 2022 book, The New Abnormal: The Rise of the Biomedical Security State. Kheriaty worked at the University of California, Irvine for almost 15 years, both as a professor and director of UCI Health's Medical Ethics Program, until he was fired for challenging the school's COVID vaccine mandate. He's also a plaintiff in the Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which alleges that the federal government coerced social media companies into censoring legally protected speech during the pandemic.

It's back-to-school season, and for some parts of the country, that means dealing with COVID restrictions again. Americans are no longer experiencing indefinite school closures or ubiquitous masking, but intermittent school closures, temporary mask mandates, and COVID vaccine requirements persist.

Join Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe for a discussion with Kheriaty on all these topics this Thursday at 1 p.m. Eastern on Reason's YouTube channel.

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