So, in my free time I like to leave BBC America on the telly. Often they run nature programs that I find informative. One episode featured a bird that made its nests on sheer face cliffs near the sea. Like other birds the parents would fly out to sea (or wherever) and get food and bring back to feed it's young.
Eventually the parents get tired of doing that and insist that their children learn to fly and get their own food. I'm kidding about the "get tired" part, but I assume it's a part of their nature to determine that at some point the chicks need to step up and learn to be independent.
So the parents stop providing food in hopes the hunger would motivate the chicks to jump out the nest and fly to sea. Some chicks are too shook and eventually the parents push them off.
Now, there are a few deadly dangers facing the chicks. Between the cliffs and the sea are foxes (and perhaps other predators) that are looking to eat chicks who don't make it to sea. Still the chicks MUST leave the nest if they are to survive. Staying on the cliff, in the nest is guaranteed death by starvation.
So off the chicks fly. Most of them make it but a number of them fall short and are eaten by the waiting foxes.
The obvious lesson here being that the nest may be safe from the obvious dangers OUTSIDE the nest, but in the long run the nest is certain death. In contrast learning to fly and going out to live on their own, has some mortal risks that WILL befall some, but the vast majority will make it and survive and live.
What if the parent birds refused to allow their chicks to leave the nest until there was a guarantee that foxes would not endanger their chicks? certain death for the chicks and eventual extinction of the colony.
"Our" reaction to the current SARS outbreak is like the bird that refuses to let the chicks out the nest. We are trapped by people who are emotionally able to deal with the fact that people die, some unfortunately from various diseases. They think that they have the right and obligation to force us to "stay in the nest" with lockdowns and closures of schools because "someone might die".
No someone WILL die. 99% of us will be fine (get sick and recover or simply not be affected).
They would be like a metaphorical bird seeing a chick fail to make it to sea and decided that they'll stay on the cliff, while paying no attention too all their comrades that are living it up on the water.
"They are taking too many risks!!!"
So now a lot of schools are opening and shock of shock, cases are spiking and the emotionally unstable leadership have quickly shut the schools back down. This is the "case-demic. As the Swedish leadership said, once the lockdowns are ended, cases will return. New Zealand is an example of this.
But the important thing is how many are dying. How many are in ICU. Thus far these numbers are NOT up. If the cases are going up but the deaths are NOT going up, then the fact that young people, the least likely group to have serious complications from COVID, are getting infected is not something to be alarmed about.
Be like the bird on the cliff. See the danger. Acknowledge the danger. Modify where necessary. Fly.
I close with two relevant videos which should be of importance to those of you with school age children.
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