I have done nothing professionally but COVID for a year. COVID is real, it’s worse than influenza, it kills people, it’s a very serious problem. But we have many problems. COVID is one of them. Solutions to the COVID problem are beginning to appear.
The fear of COVID is indeed a new thing, it is very pronounced, and the really bad news is that it is nowhere more pronounced than in the public schools, where the least vulnerable people in the world, children, congregate.
Children follow their teachers. They respect their teachers. They think their teachers know better.
And their teachers, with exceptions of course, are consumed by fear. Fear of the weather. Fear of “racism”. Fear of using the wrong word. Fear of physical force. Fear of guns. Fear of masculinity. And, fear of COVID.
People speculate about the explosion of anxiety disorders among young people. This has been accelerating for decades, but is peaking now.
Who says they aren’t learning anything?
You make a very good point: this “fear of Covid” is simply one of the many exaggerated, paralyzing fears that have taken over our lives.
I think a lot of it has to do with the rejection of God and the abandonment, even by the churches themselves, of the idea that human life is intentional, has a goal, and is valued and of value. That is, people now feel like random bits of inexplicably animated matter, with no particular purpose and of no greater value than any other matter, in a world with no stable structure and no significance. And the only thing that can protect them and let them scuttle through their days is ... the government, which has substituted itself for all other belief structures and morality.
And the government, which is nothing but people with a lust for power and control, seeking more power and control in order to overcome their own fears and enable them to feel in charge in this now pointless universe, does nothing but keep the fears going and growing.
Life is risky.
People are far more likely to croak in a car accident on the way to Wally to buy face diapers than they are to die from WuFlu.
I don’t see people suggesting we give up cars and ban driving.
When the heck did people become so dumb as to think life can be risk free?