Theater of the Absurd

Jeffrey I. Barke, M.D.

I recently travelled across the country to Hillsdale, Michigan. My wife and I sat for 5 hours each way on airplanes with a mesh mask pressed across our faces. It made the absurdity of the mask mandate we live under both clear and very depressing. The charade in which we are all forced to participate is not only totalitarian in nature, it is a big Orwellian lie.

I am sure most of the passengers on the planes were either Covid-19- vaccinated or Covid-19-recovered. While few speak about the thousands of people who have had Covid-19 and survived, they are turning out to be an important group in the ongoing battle against the virus. I, myself, am Covid-recovered after a bout with the disease a couple of months ago. I now have natural immunity to the disease. 

Forcing someone like me to wear a mask makes no scientific or health sense. There are no studies to show that mask wearing on an airplane can stop a respiratory viral illness. If that were the case, we would expect pilots to always wear masks while in the cockpit. But they don’t. Maybe the recirculated air on airplanes keeps them safe from onboard viruses. Furthermore, if mask wearing on an airplane were critical to preventing the spread of the disease, why are we allowed to remove our masks for extended periods of time while eating and drinking? I wish someone would pose that specific question to Dr. Fauci.

Of course, the requirement to wear a mask when entering or exiting a restaurant, but leaving it off while eating and drinking, also makes absolutely no sense. Do the authorities suppose that the Covid-19 virus stops seeking new hosts to infect only when we are unmasked but not eating or drinking? Do these bureaucratic geniuses really believe that the virus plays fair, observing equivalent rules to those invented by the Marquess of Queensbury for boxing. I think the Covid-19 virus is more likely to play by Fight-Club rules!

The CDC recently acknowledged that they do not have any data showing that naturally immune Covid-recovered people can get and spread the disease to others.  Despite this, the CDC discriminates against these people by insisting that they must be fully vaccinated in addition to wearing a mask to function in society. 

Since the CDC is requiring these measures, you would think that they would have a mountain of evidence to support such a draconian policy. They don’t. The science, in fact, shows just the opposite. It shows that natural immunity is strong, durable and broad based. Strong means that natural immunity protects against a Covid infection better than immunity produced by a vaccine. It is why we do not see Covid-recovered patients getting Covid again. 

While it is common to see Covid-vaccinated people getting Covid and even requiring hospitalization, Covid-recovereds stay healthy. Multiple studies have confirmed that SARS CoV 2 behaves much like SARS CoV 1 as well as many other viral illnesses such as chicken pox, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. That is, these diseases provide long lasting immunity to those who have been infected. 

I had chicken pox as a child. I got it because my mom walked my brother and me down the street to a neighbor’s house where the kid who lived there had the illness. Our dad, a physician, wanted to have us exposed and to deal with the disease under controlled conditions and when it is mild. This was circa 1970 prior to a chickenpox vaccination being available. 

Many scientists expect SARS CoV 2 — the virus that causes Covid-19 — to behave similarly. Covid-recovered patients appear to be immune to all SARS CoV 2 variants, including the Delta variant. This broad immunity occurs because those who contract Covid-19 have exposure to the entire virus. This is in major contrast to the vaccine which creates immunity to just the spike protein of the virus, thus limiting the immunity and making it much easier for the virus to break through the vaccine-induced immunity.

There is an expression that says, “we get what we tolerate.” Over the past 21 months, we have tolerated assaults on our liberties that we would never have accepted before Covid-19. We have allowed unelected health care bureaucrats to cover their rear ends against any possible outcome from the disease — no matter how unlikely. We have allowed a complicit media to knowingly sell every possible danger from the virus to a fearful public. We should all be embarrassed by the hoax they have perpetuated and we have absorbed.

I would normally think that strong men would step up and say no - the same ones that fight wars, protect our streets, and battle bullies in the school yard. But they were emasculated early on by the “experts.” Now, however, the mamma bears have become involved as the bureaucrats, politicians and supportive media try to force children as young as 5 to get an investigational vaccine against a virus that poses little risk to their age group. 

Ah, but don’t ever underestimate mama bears and the protective nature of their maternal instincts. They may yet be the force to stop the current madness and then join the larger battle for the future of America.