Fact Check: Eglin Air Force Base Is NOT Making COVID-19 Testing, Boosters or Masking Mandatory After Labor Day 2023

Fact Check

  • by: Sarah Thompson
Fact Check: Eglin Air Force Base Is NOT Making COVID-19 Testing, Boosters or Masking Mandatory After Labor Day 2023 No Mandates

Did Eglin Air Force Base make masks, COVID-19 testing, and booster shots mandatory after Labor Day 2023? No, that's not true: In a brief statement, the deputy chief of media operations with the Department of the Air Force at the Pentagon denied the rumor. He informed Lead Stories, "There are no COVID guidelines or mandates being implemented at Eglin Air Force Base."

The rumor originated with a September 2, 2023, post on X (formerly Twitter) published by @scarlett4kids (archived here), which opened:

My son-in-law's Air Force base in Florida is making masks, Covid-19 testing, and jab boosters MANDATORY after Labor Day.

All because TWO positive cases. They aren't even sick. Mandatory testing to go on leave. JoeBiden's @CDCgov is thirsty.

It's coming folks. RESIST.

Never Again.

This is what the post looked like on Twitter at the time of writing:
eglinpost.jpg

Twitter screenshot(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon Sep 18 15:15:43 2023 UTC)

In a follow-up post (archived here) on September 2, 2023, @scarlett4kids clarified which air force base she was referring to:

Yes, this is for real.
Eglin Air Force Base, Florida

eglinpart2.jpg

Twitter screenshot(Source: Twitter screenshot taken on Mon Sep 18 15:15:43 2023 UTC)

Lead Stories reached out to the Defense Press Operations office in the Pentagon on September 18, 2023, to ask if there was any basis to this claim. The deputy chief of media operations at the Department of the Air Force responded the same day:

There are no COVID guidelines or mandates being implemented at Eglin Air Force Base.

Lead Stories has reached out to the public affairs team at Eglin Air Force Base and will update this article, if appropriate, when an Eglin representative replies.

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Lead Stories is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers who are fighting misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Learn more about the alliance here.


  Sarah Thompson

Sarah Thompson lives with her family and pets on a small farm in Indiana. She founded a Facebook page and a blog called “Exploiting the Niche” in 2017 to help others learn about manipulative tactics and avoid scams on social media. Since then she has collaborated with journalists in the USA, Canada and Australia and since December 2019 she works as a Social Media Authenticity Analyst at Lead Stories.


 

Read more about or contact Sarah Thompson

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