Make it stop, please. The endless gaslighting.

Could we at least just stop calling them FREE? You know, the quartet of covid test kits that the magnanimous federal government began sending on Monday to any household that requested them.

These kits are not free. They are costing taxpayers $600 million. For 200 million kits that will expire in a couple of months.

Even this former English major can do the math: That’s 3 bucks a pop for a Q-tip, a plastic tray and some magic serum that may or may not give you an accurate reading.

This is on top of the 755 million “free” tests distributed during the pandemic.

At the risk of raising the ire of the Branch Covidians who are still out there and are nostalgic for the good old panicky days of the pandemic, who cares if they have covid? It’s a coronavirus. Milder than a seasonal flu in some cases, worse in others. 

And what should you do if you have the flu? Stay home, drink liquids and try not to spread your germs around.

At this point, when virtually everyone has had covid at least once and everyone who wants to be vaccinated has been shot full of mRNA serum multiple times, what makes covid so special that people are swabbing their nostrils over it? Worse, why are they then notifying the government of their results?

And yes, I’m aware that early on - three years and dozens of variants ago - this novel virus was a mystery that was killing people and making others very sick. Those were mostly elderly folks, obese or with other conditions that compromised their immune systems. Although some younger, healthier folks succumbed too. 

People were terrified and the government pounced on that fear and fed it.

Trouble is, power-hungry people in Washington miss all the submissive behavior that came with the pandemic. So they’re trying to gin up the fear once again. The only way to do that is to get people sticking Q-tips up their noses and reporting the results so that every case of the sniffles gets counted. When that happens, the covid numbers rise and voila! “Covid isn’t over!” they will chant triumphantly. 

I didn’t test last time covid was around. I’m not about to start now.

When I did get sick - a severe cold, really - during the winter of 2021, I took decongestants (the kind the FDA approved and just admitted were worthless), stayed away from people and waited it out.

Was it covid? I have no idea.

What’s the point of all this? It seems to me that if we accept that we will all fall ill from time to time, and chances are it will be from a flu or a covid variant, we can stop testing. We can definitely stop reporting results to the bureaucrats. We can definitely stop sending tests to any household that wants them.

You want to test? Fine. Go to the CVS an buy a kit.

Then go ahead and swab away. It’s a free country. If you’re sick, stay home. Most of us don’t want to be spreading anything.

But for the love of all that is good, stop saying these tests are FREE.