As I readied for a doctor’s appointment the past Thursday, I was in the midst of getting together the items I would need: Wallet, car keys, face mask.
But the wife, seeing the mask, clued me in on a combined Magna Carta, Declaration of Independence freedom moment. Wielding a copy of the local Daily Planet, she showed me a story that Conemaugh Health System – at long last – had backed off the mask mandate for staff, patients and visitors.
Welcome back to reality after a three-year absence.
Make no mistake, much of the COVID hype (including mask mandates) was a social experiment to see just how far the public could be pushed in terms of abdicating freedoms before pushing back. No dictate was too draconian, no limitation was subject to debate, as these petty dictators rode the wave of fear they had created.
Travel was restricted. Visitation to aging parents in nursing homes, or patients in hospitals, was suspended. Gatherings ranging from family holiday celebrations, to weekly church services, public school classes and athletic events, were to cease if we knew what was good for us.
And masks. One is good. Two would be better. Three is an improvement on two.
You laugh. I’m serious. Do an internet search for “wearing two, three mask absurdity” and you will be directed to a November 2020 story posted on NPR.org quoting an expert saying exactly that – the more (masks) the merrier.
If one had the temerity to question this overkill, they were decried as “deniers” who didn’t believe in “science.”
And the vaccines. Only selfish morons didn’t get repeated COVID vaccines, despite mounting evidence then and now that they were not nearly as effective as promised, that the disease was not that deadly on a statistical basis, and there were and are adverse side effects from vaccines, including sudden death due to heart events among otherwise healthy young people.
I had a heated exchange with my primary care physician (now they are back to being family doctors) about this. Using probability, I told him I saw the risk of me dying from COVID (about four-tenths of one percent) as less a threat than what dangers I would be exposed to by taking some unproven vaccine rushed through without typical studies and a government that gave the manufacturers total immunity from any legal action should their vaccines prove harmful.
I would go on to contract COVID – twice. I’m still here. Point made.
Yes, I know people who have died of COVID. I grieve for them. I also know people who died in car accidents, yet I am not afraid to drive a car. I know people who have succumbed to heart attacks, but I still walk for exercise.
I’m still waiting for my doctor to apologize for his vaccine rants.
Evidence continues to mount regarding problems with COVID vaccines and the ineffectiveness of such things as masks.
A new study from Finland, published in a public health journal there, found mask mandates for children did not reduce the incidence of COVID infection. Repeat, masks did NOTHING favorable for the kids.
But wearing masks may have done harm to the children for reasons both physical and psychological. And closing down schools did incalculable harm.
Where are all the MASKHOLES now? SCIENCE is proving them wrong.
At least Conemaugh has, for now, bowed to reality.
Understand, though, that we’re only one ginned up, overhyped pandemic away from being ordered back into the bunkers because you, dear people, proved you will buy their scare tactics.
Sam Ross Jr's site 