I’m a cynic. Always questioning, never happy with simple answers. Always watching what is going on, asking “why?” When it comes to COVID, I’ve had more questions than there are real answers.

I currently have two main quarrels with our approach to COVID. One, masks. I live in sunny California. It’s the first day of spring. My farmers market requires masks, and I can’t help but wonder, walking around outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine, why?

They don’t work, we know that. I breathe and my glasses fog up. Clearly, air is getting in and out. If it weren’t, I’d be dead. One commenter on MeWe made a good observation: He lays sheetrock and, when he takes his heavy-duty mask off, there’s always fine white bits around his nose. Do you think the virus is as large as those fine bits? Nah!

My neighbors walk around by themselves, or with their dog, or ride bikes, with a mask or two shoved over their faces. Really? I’m sure many are immunized now. They seem to be sticking younger and younger people around here.

As Rand Paul pointed out, once you’ve had the virus, or you’ve been immunized against it, you are no longer going to give it to someone else, nor will you get it from others. So, what’s the point? The mask is simply a symbol of our submission.

Quarrel number two is with mindless mass vaccination.

Sometimes, you have to string together the headlines, because they show up in random places at different times. One that says big Pharma is making, and will continue to make, a fortune on the COVID vaccine. Another says that Dr. Fauci (or is it Dr. Faust?) wants to start giving it to babies.

Those two facts are enough to sound alarm klaxons in my mind. Our vaccines are already being given as a massive drug trial. The virus doesn’t hurt babies or children except in very rare cases. So why the push to vaccinate them? What about unknown side-effects? It’s too early to tell if there are any.

Yeah, the vaccine is (so far) a great thing. My chemist friend assures me that it is not going to cause harm. He’s under 40 and wants it. My kids that age do, too. But how do we know it’s safe? It’s a new type of vaccine, a new science that has never been tested before. This type of vaccine is far more “novel” than the virus itself. The science may prove it to be 100% wonderful or these vaccines may yet have undiscovered side effects. The bottom line is that we simply won’t know for a while. Quite a while.

Here's the bottom line on drug trials, as quoted from Healthline.com:

Clinical trials and their individual phases are a very important part of clinical research. They allow the safety and effectiveness of new drugs or treatments to be properly assessed before being approved for use in the general public.

Most drug trials follow a set pattern that takes years. They are administered cautiously and are double-blind, placebo-controlled, phased studies. This “drug trial” is clearly not being administered with caution; it’s clearly not following protocol.

COVID is a virus where the vast majority of the deaths didn’t have to happen in the first place but were caused, instead, by mismanagement (putting sick people in nursing homes for one) and by not using all available means in treating it. There have always been remedies that worked against this virus, something discovered fairly early in the game but ignored. At least one – hydroxychloroquine, was often withheld because Trump suggested it.

Maybe these cavalier approaches to human life – and I’m sorry to be such a cynic here -- were because killing a few hundred thousand people is good for the bottom line? Fewer elderly folks to receive Medicare and social security. Certainly, the elderly are the vast majority of the deaths.

When it comes to the unknowns with this vaccine, the young bear the greatest burden because they have a long life ahead of them. For them, caution and a wait-and-see attitude seem logical to me. It’s their choice, or in the case of children, their parents’ choice, and I hope that stays the case. I don’t want to see vaccination mandated, or life and travel restricted for the unvaccinated. I believe in people’s right to choose. I don’t believe it the government’s right to experiment on children.

IMAGE: Vaccination by CDC on Unsplash.