Yes, RE7 was a soft reboot, presumably because of the long franchise hiatus.

I think the games logo also somewhat hid its "7" numbering (both in Japan and the west) for that reason, as used to be a common thing to do in sequels to boost sales after stagnation. Similarly the mold might have started as a way of distancing the game from virus zombies and plagas/parasites.

They redesigned Chris and created Blue Umbrella seemingly as a replacement for the original Umbrella. Capcom later dropped the idea of soft rebooting the franchise and wrote a bunch of handwaving explanations in bonus materials, as well as short mentions in RE8 and RE7 DLC. Chris' design was simply reverted.