Masks work. Masks don’t work

Six feet social distancing works. Six feet doesn’t work, it would take 27 feet.

Vaccines work. Some vaccinated people are still getting sick, some dying.

Follow the science. How? The Centers for Disease Control constantly contradicts itself.

Some people have natural immunity and don’t need vaccinated. There’s no such thing as natural immunity.

If you’ve had COVID, you have acquired natural immunity and don’t need a vaccine. You can still be a carrier, so you should get vaccinated, wear a mask and social distance.

If you test positive (i.e. you have had even the slightest bit of exposure to covid) and are asymptomatic, you are a “case.” Case counts are vastly inflated and meaningless.

Children suffer very minor effects from COVID. Children should be vaccinated — when we develop one.

Parents should wear masks when in the presence of their children. Parents don’t need to wear masks when in the presence of their children.

It’s safe to visit your loved ones. It’s not safe to visit your loved ones.

Do you get it, people? You’ve been had. This epidemic, which began in China, funded by us, intentionally exported to the USA (brilliant, by the way), glommed onto by the Democrats and their lapdog media as a way to get rid of Trump — soon grew into a vehicle to achieve other political goals, get in front of TV cameras, a golden opportunity to make a name for yourself, fatten wallets. It seems the sky became the limit.

But we can’t just have an epidemic, No, no. We can’t allow people to use their own judgment, exercise their own basic freedoms. Uh-uh. We have to have a pandemic, drag the rest of the world into our particular insanity and achieve international political goals, get in front of worldwide TV cameras, fatten even more wallets.

Mother Nature has a way of exerting her own will on things, regardless of misplaced human confidence in our ability to fix anything, prevent everything, bend all catastrophes to our desires. It’s called “thinning the herd.” There exists no evidence of which I’m aware that, having been allowed to run its course — without wrecking the economy, accruing multi-generational debt, imposing massive government restriction of basic freedoms, and generally running about with our hair on fire — we wouldn’t be in the same or better situation right now. This whole fiasco needs to be studied as a classic case of conservative values vs. liberal values – give people the tools to succeed and trust them, vs. dictate and micromanage behavior and punish miscreants. Which are you?

It’s so sad to think that this opinion, however accurate or misguided it may be, is in danger of being banned from publication for the same reasons, by the same forces, just mentioned: freedom of expression vs. media censorship; the right to be wrong vs. adherence to the approved groupthink. Even Orwell would be shocked. Which are you?

Ralph R. Keniston is a Warren resident.