This article was originally published by Jeffrey I. Barke, MD at the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity. 

I recently traveled across the country to Hillsdale, Michigan. My wife and I sat for five 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 depressing. The charade in which we are all forced to participate is not only totalitarian in nature, but also 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 a 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 always to 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.

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 Queensberry for boxing? I think the COVID-19 virus is more likely to play by Fight Club rules!

The CDC recently acknowledged that it does 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 be fully vaccinated in addition to wearing a mask to function in society.

Since the CDC is requiring these measures, you would think it would have a mountain of evidence to support such a draconian policy. It doesn’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 chickenpox, measles, mumps, rubella, etc. That is, these diseases provide long-lasting immunity to those who have been infected.