David Marcus, aside from having the same name as Jim Kirk’s son, is a writer and cogent observer of the modern scene. Here he lets loose on the unnecessary mask wearing brigade.

Marcus: “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) loosened masks requirements a bit more last week to allow the vaccinated to go barefaced in outdoor transportation settings. It’s another small step toward normalcy, but some Americans seem unwilling to forgo the face covering even in the face of the new guidance.

In so many cases over the past year, masks have been less a protective tool and more a symbol of virtue. This is a problem. Tools are easily discarded. When the job is done you put away the hammer or saw without a second thought. Not so with symbols. Symbols become a part of us, a part of our identity that mingles with our self-worth.

Why are so many Americans still donning face muzzles well past their sell-by date? Obviously, it is not entirely for medical reasons. It’s often because the cloth coverings have become as essential part of who they are. In writing my book, ‘Charade: The Covid Lies that Crushed a Nation,’ I relived the entire serpentine story of mask-wearing in 2020 and into 2021. First we were told by the surgeon general that masks were basically useless. That’s an opinion NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci’s emails now show us he agreed with, saying the virus particles were too small for masks to be effective.

Next, they became essential and mandatory after the CDC changed its guidance on April 3, 2020. Nobody has exactly explained how or why. Some of those who doubted the efficacy of masks joked about wearing two masks for protection against the virus and sure enough that eventually became the guidance. It’s just common sense, we were told. But what really happened was that the mask transubstantiated backward into a symbol. This was very much the fault of President Joe Biden, Democrats and their allies in the liberal media.

From day one of his presidency Biden wore masks in absurd situations that had nothing to do with science, such as when outdoors and socially distant. Even this year he was the only world leader masked on a Zoom call. Biden, we were told, was just setting a good example. But he wasn’t, he was setting a paranoid and cultish example. The example he set was that wearing a mask showed you cared, showed you took the virus seriously, that it made you a good person. No wonder so many people now fear taking off the mask in case they look like a Republican, or God forbid a Trump supporter. The blue mask became the red MAGA hat of the left.

Trump approached this differently. He meticulously only wore masks when it was recommended by the CDC. He adamantly refused to give in to the idea of mask as symbol. The media mendaciously turned this into Trump being anti-mask…In the end, taking off the masks will not be enough. Our society must come to terms with how so many of its citizens became so attached to them that even following ‘the science’ will not make them give up the practice of wearing them. Symbols, you see, are powerful things.”