Amid all the talk surrounding COVID-19, one thing is widely agreed upon: something must be done. Wearing a mask is a popular way to do something to stop the virus. However, popularity aside, what does common sense say? A Danish study found that masks have little to no effect in protecting people from the virus. The study monitored two groups, one that wore masks and one that didn't, and both had about a 2 percent infection rate.
I did my own research as well, since the mainstream media apparently isn't doing its job. About a month ago, I compared the 17 states that do not require masks with 17 that do, making sure each state I was comparing was comparable in population density. Here’s what I found:
There were 78,821,550 people living in the 17 states that did not require masks, and 2,344,154 of those people had or had had COVID-19. That’s an infection rate of 2.97 percent. Of those infected, 45,933 have died of the disease for a death rate of 1.95 percent.
Among the 17 mask-wearing states I chose there are 79,196,730 people, and 1,725,171 had or had had COVID-19. That’s an infection rate of 2.18 percent. Of those infected, 54,833 have died of the disease for a death rate of 3.18 percent. (COVID-19 stats are according to the New York Times’ data.)
Considering this data, it’s fair to conclude that, yes, the virus is more widespread in the states that do not require masks, but the number of deaths and the death rate are lower in those states because the population is becoming immune to the virus as it spreads.
As educated citizens, we should be able to think for ourselves. We should notice that executive orders and laws that mandate citizens to wear masks are unjustified. They need to be defied because they go against reason.
A large part of the debate about wearing masks revolves around how effective they are in preventing the spread of the virus. The debate is hardly ever connected to the argument for herd immunity. If people would see that the spread of the virus actually will cause fewer deaths in the long run, the whole case for wearing masks falls apart.
You may say the virus is too strong and we will suffer too many deaths before reaching herd immunity, and overwhelm the hospitals. But that's not true. According to The New York Times, 90 percent of positive COVID-19 tests were false positive, which means in 90 percent of positive COVID-19 tests the virus was too weak in its hosts for them to spread it. Yet, that 90 percent is still included in the overall number of cases, and used to justify orders made by the authorities--like orders to wear masks.
The tests are the writing on the wall: the virus is weakening, as all viruses do over time. People can carry it without spreading a lethal strand of it, and thereby help build a protective wall in the population by producing antibodies.
A virus needs new hosts to survive, but the more hosts it finds the more it thins out; unless it is given an environment where it can grow and adapt. Our immune system is adapting to the virus, but masks give the virus a chance to adapt to us.
Furthermore, whether you have the coronavirus or not, wearing a mask prevents your body from getting rid of what it needs to get rid of, as immune systems are designed to do. Wearing a mask makes your face like a petri dish of germs and makes it harder for your body to fight off its enemies. That's why, in normal circumstances, doctors advise you to cover your face with your elbow when you cough or sneeze and wash your hands often. These are the reasonable measures for fighting the virus.
Wearing a mask strengthens the virus by giving it a more contained environment within which it can adapt and mutate, instead of an airy environment where it would be more vulnerable. If masks are protecting us, in doing so they also protect the virus because we are its host. Masks also typically make it harder to breathe, and raise our blood pressure. This further compromises our immune system, making it harder to fight not just the virus but anything our body may be fighting. Personally, I know this because I get a head-ache, light-headed and nauseous when I wear a mask.
While logic states that masks should prevent the spread or COVID-19, common sense has shown otherwise. Logic can exist in a vacuum. Common sense tells us we need to see real-life proof. Logic can be demonstrated in a lab with controlled variables. Common sense has to be proven out in the real world. Here is something that didn't just happen in a lab experiment, something that didn't just get said on a screen by an expert, but something that happened in real life:
Our President and First Lady had COVID-19 and contracted it from someone who was wearing a mask.
White House aide Hope Hicks tested positive for the virus, and was wearing a mask when flying with Trump the week he contracted it, according to The Epoch Times.
Trump said, “[Hicks] wears masks a lot, but she tested positive.”
What is the point of wearing masks when the data and real-life circumstances show that they make no difference? I’ll tell you the point. It’s a political statement. Without masks, there is no visual sign of a serious crisis. Without a crisis, mainstream media and politicians can’t push for drastic changes in society like they have been for months.
Doctors and scientists know more about the coronavirus than I do, but knowledge does not always equate to trustworthiness. They could use their expertise to support ulterior motives. The mainstream media, government powers, and rich ideologues have the leverage to be the arbiters of truth. They reference themselves to prove themselves right, and disregard naysayers by inserting that the naysayers are not one of them.
Governments and mainstream media want to build a strong defense against COVID-19. As with most enemies, the best defense against this virus is a good offense. If we must do something, the reasonable thing to do now is to take the masks off.
Wearing a Mask Goes against Charity
Mandating masks teaches us to see one another as a threat. Children are being taught that their neighbors are a danger to them. They are being led astray. These are the formative years for many children, and they are being deprived of a basic means of human communication: a person's facial expressions. Communication is a vital part of learning about the world. While adults may already have a thorough understanding about the nuances of facial expressions, many children do not. To deprive them of such a huge means of communication is uncharitable.
Also, we deserve each other's smile. It is the most universal sign of joy and happiness. So often in public, it's a simple smile from a stranger that makes someone's day. Now we are being told that this simple yet powerful gift is not valuable enough, or at least not as valuable as COVID-19 is dangerous. I beg to differ. I think a smile is ten times more powerful than COVID-19, and can do ten times more good than the virus can do harm.
Masks naturally make us fearful and suspicious of people. That's why robbers and burglars wear them. We fear what we don't know, and that includes faces we can't as easily identify. I may not smile often, but I know the universal value of a smile. I may not always be very charitable, but I know that we owe one another the decency to not see one another as a threat.
A commenter named Wendycats nailed it:
"Masks conceal most of the face, causing a 'depersonalization' effect that makes it so much easier to feel good about snitching on your neighbors. Masks make it impossible to read the usual human facial cues humans have depended on for millennia in interpersonal encounters, and render everybody suspicious and fearful of everybody else. Fearful people are so much easier to control."
Wearing a Mask Goes against Justice
We have a right to make decisions that involve our own face. Also, mandates to wear a mask are not laws in most places. They're executive orders by governors only. Laws have to be written by the legislature, passed by the senate, and then interpreted by the courts of each state.
The whole plan of the damn panic is to break apart society so the socialists in America can build a new one to their fashioning. To get a glimpse of what that society would be like, just look at what our society has been for the past eight months.
I could remain silent. I could avoid these "political" issues and increase my number of employer and client prospects; except when I do "it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it" (Jeremiah 20:9).
If the mainstream media and the authorities continue to grab fundamental rights, and then dissenters are labeled "political" just for standing up for those rights, then we have given up important ground and have even more reason to resist. A docile public that allows basic freedoms to be confiscated is on a sure path to tyranny.
God is every ideal, including freedom. We would not have such a deep desire for it if God were not freedom. He is freedom because freedom is essential in order to do his will. He desires our hearts. He desires our love, and love is not possible without freedom. Any authority that threatens freedom therefore must be defied.
The needs of our society are too great. The need for people to stand up for freedom despite the obstacles is too eminent. It will be hard. There will be persecution. But I think this may have been Rambling Spirit's purpose from the beginning, because its foundation is built on freedom of thought--which is now being attacked virulently.