From a legal or moral viewpoint, "First, do no harm" expresses the idea that medical providers' duty runs directly to patients.  A failure of that duty that we all saw during the pandemic was the banishment of patients who wouldn't don humiliating and pointless masks as a condition of entry. 

It wasn't hard to foresee that while the average patient would meekly go along, some people would resent and refuse.  The latter would be sent packing and denied treatment.  Both personal denigration and the withholding of medical services constitute harms.  So what excuse might exist for such profound unprofessionalism?

The obvious one would be that doctors and clinics were just following mandates raining down from an overreaching government.  But again, they owe their duty of care to patients, not to politicians.  If the government commands that doctors abuse their patients, it is their professional duty to refuse. 

None that I'm aware of ever did.  They sided with the bureaucrats and against their patients.  I myself had a doctor who, after Anthony Fauci proclaimed from on high that two masks are better than one, required the same of all who entered his waiting room.  (I saw this doctor recently — he's an excellent physician — and even he has left the mindless mask mandating behind.  Not all health facilities, as I'll get to, have, even now.)  At the time, he was seduced by a pied piper whose pronouncements had neither force of law nor evidentiary backing. 

How do I, a non-scientist, know there was no evidence?  Because not only did Fauci not provide any, but ultimately, in January of this year, the prestigious British group Cochrane presented a giant meta study — a synthesis of studies worldwide — that concluded: "Wearing masks in the community probably makes little or no difference."  The study's lead author, Tom Jefferson, was even more emphatic: "There is no evidence" he said, "that [masks] make any difference.  Full stop."

Last May, the World Health Organization ended the COVID-19 emergency status.  Yet some still argue that we don't have sufficient knowledge to stop masking.  They have things backwards.  The burden is on those who support extreme measures — and forcing patients to dress up as slobbering train robbers is extreme — not on opponents.  Arguing that draconian intrusions on personal autonomy might (or even would) achieve some desired result isn't enough. 

But am I just being theoretical, rehashing the past from which most of us have moved on?  First, I have no obligation to forgive and forget.  But my concern isn't just about bygone years.  It is entirely foreseeable that pols, having gained a taste of frightening powers they never thought possible, will try this all again — lockdowns, mandates, censorship of opposing views — at the first opportunity.  And this go-'round isn't over.  As I mentioned, some medical facilities — like the UCLA health complex, NYC Health and Hospitals, and other clinics around the country — still mandate masks. 

Why would they do that, especially in light of Cochrane?  Maybe stopping their pitiless perfidy would draw attention to the fact that they ever engaged in it.  Or maybe the cynical bureaucrats who run such facilities have calculated that the numerous neurotics they helped create make playing at pandemic a profitable business model.  The chief nursing officer at the 70-clinic Nebraska Medicine, which still requires masks, hinted at such cynical bottom-line calculations when she said of patients pressing her facilities to stop: "That's not good for business."

In any case, what are we the patients to do?  First, stop putting up with mandates.  Walk away.  I myself had seven doctors at UCLA, some of whom I've trusted for as long as 30 years.  But I'm replacing any of them who chooses to enforce UCLA's mask requirements, one by one.  I'm moving on and taking control, and it is hugely liberating. 

Just as in any kind of abusive relationship, the first step toward healing is to leave.  

Steven Zak is an attorney and writer.  His articles have appeared in publications including The Atlantic, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and USAToday.

Image: Pkd2016 via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).