This is not true, I was on a flight in economy just yesterday where passengers were allowed to purchase alcohol.

I stand corrected, many major airlines have stopped serving alcohol, but not all of them. I took 3 round trip American flights last year and that had been my observation: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/american-airlines-no-alco...

Is that a new thing during the pandemic? Because booze in the economy section was definitely a thing before.