First, pandemic policymakers averred masks weren't useful in stopping the spread of COVID-19. Now, these authoritarians in government, health care, and the media are demanding citizens wear masks. What gives?

Throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, by their own admissions and actions, the pandemic policymakers have been wrong. Egregious and injuriously errant models regarding mortality and hospitalizations; the unprecedented societal and economic damage these models caused by instigating the lockdown of entire states; the lethal nursing home policies placing COVID-19-positive seniors in with non-infected seniors; the now-discredited warnings the virus was easily transmissible on surfaces—their flip-flops, revisions, and disasters go on and compound daily.

Unabashed by their abysmal track record, the pandemic policymakers now demand everyone wear a mask under the pain of prosecution, starvation, isolation, societal shaming, or all of the above. The irony of pandemic policymakers—who should be ashamed of their failures—arguing you be shamed for disregarding them is as ironic as it is tyrannical.

But never let it be said the experts allow failure to diminish their self-esteem.

Symbols Over Substance

Dr. Anthony Fauci weighed in that he wears a mask because he believes it is "effective." While conceding the mask is "not 100 percent effective," he doesn't say how effective it actually is in stopping transmission of the COVID-19 virus.