With the lack of verifiable randomized controlled trials showing that masks or social distancing stop the spread of COVID… do not these practices now fall in the category of superstition?

“Aren’t you increasingly thinking as this thing goes on that it doesn’t make sense?” asks actor Russell Brand in a short video. “The things you are allowed to do, the things you are not allowed to do; the places you are allowed to go. You can go to the hair dressers, you can’t go to the gym, you can do this, but you can’t do that. Do that. Stand apart. Stand here. Put on a mask. It’s becoming ritualized, abstract.

“Like the god of COVID is appeased through gesture, ritual and ceremony, as opposed to an actual pragmatic response. This is because… we have become so divorced from meaning and purpose in our nihilistic, consumerist cultures that we create ritual and ceremony around actions and events that are ultimately meaningless….”

Imagine the outcry if stores required all women to wear a hijab before entering? What if you were expected to dip your finger in holy water before using an ATM? And wouldn’t a restaurant go bankrupt if all patrons were expected to execute three sun salutations before being served (unless they had a medical exemption, of course!). Even the most devout Muslim, Catholic or Hindu would never demand that of their customers.

Yet, almost overnight, store owners of all or no particular faith have been forced baptized into the Church of Corona. Members expected to coerce their customers into ritualistic behaviour (complete with ceremonial masks!) that seek to ward off an invisible enemy – until our lord and saviour Bill H. Gates can finally redeem us with a jab of his consecrated vaccine.