In this short, powerful collection of essays, a physician and local leader in Orange County, California, offers his reality check to the standard mainstream government and media messaging about the COVID-19 pandemic. His position is that absurd, overreactive government and societal responses to the coronavirus, like school and business closures, have destroyed common sense, threatened the healthy exchange of germs, and sucker-punched economic norms. He posits that COVID-19 only presents flu-like symptoms in relatively healthy people under age 65. Those at risk should stay home, and the rest of the American population, including and especially kids, should get back to mask-free school, work, and everyday life.

Dr. Barke’s provocative assertions are delivered with a clear readable language that a layperson can understand and follow. His observations are timely in a dynamic situation, and his succinct chapters are well-written and persuasive with their authoritative voice and confident stance. His dual backgrounds in medicine and school oversight lend weight to his opinions. Some readers may, at times, seek additional substantiation to the book’s more noteworthy claims. The statement, for example, that COVID-19 is cured by a cocktail of easily attainable and known remedies is delivered with anecdotal reference to a successful physician but without the typical trappings of cited studies and scientific references. Still, hunger by many readers for information on this topic is undoubtedly vast, and this book of intriguing medical and sociological commentary reads like a page-turner. It is a compelling and optimistic assessment that offers thought-provoking alternatives to what may otherwise be accepted by some as inarguable truths.

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