Let’s cut young Canadians some coronavirus slack

Once the fear genie is let loose, enticing it back into the bottle is not some easy task.

Indeed, it’s often followed into the open by an even more destructive emotion: anger.

And what could fuel a more fearful threat than the pandemic we’re grimly living through.

Most worrying is the escalating war of words between the U.S. and China, both trying to play the blame-and-shame game over COVID-19.

Such spreading animosity is threatening to rival any virus in terms of an existential global threat.

Meanwhile, borders everywhere are closed to foreigners and strangers: seen as dangerous outsiders and unwelcome as either tourists or potential future citizens.

Collectively, we’re so scared by mass-death modelling we’ve willingly submitted to the largest global social experiment ever conducted; the simultaneous shutdowns of lifestyles billions have long taken for granted.

But it’s not been easy, and the strictures we readily accepted are fraying at the edges. So, after initially turning against outsiders, we’re now fighting among ourselves. And the biggest target for such collective ire is our own young.

Last weekend, a bunch of youngsters in Toronto took to a local park in large numbers. The photos and video from the scene made it appear nobody present cared a jot about social distancing.

Calls of stupid, heartless and selfish were immediately heaped upon their heads. Oh, they don’t care. They’ll merrily spread this virus without giving a darn and it’ll kill grandma and grandpa: that being the general accusation.

Well, it’s time we backed off a little. Because, when it comes to victims of this epidemic, the young are hardly getting a free pass.

It’s their schools and colleges that are closed while the parttime jobs they once enjoyed in hospitality services and the gig economy are bearing the brunt of closures. And the enormous debts governments are piling up everywhere are theirs to inherit.

Yet the COVID -19 threat to their own lives is relatively low.

Still, they’re admonished to stay home; don’t mix with friends; shun concerts, theatres or hockey games and forget even playing Frisbee in the park. As for planning a date with a recent love interest, stick that in no-go neutral, too.

For the most part, they’ve played by those rules for months, so is it surprising, when things open up a tad, they flood a local park to meet and greet in the sunshine?

Perhaps my generation, the baby boomers — often the loudest complainers — should try recalling being young.

Would we have been as dutiful, if told by our elders to stick with such strict social quarantine? Not a chance. We challenged each and every authority, back in our day.

To jog collective memories, let’s return to 1969, a time when the planet’s last major epidemic was cutting its final swath.

The Hong Kong flu, like many viruses, had returned for a repeat, deadlier performance, after initially arriving in 1968.

Borders weren’t closed, colleges shuttered, bars and restaurants off-limits and the economy wasn’t deliberately deep-sixed. We might have sheltered in place July 20, but only to watch one small step for man and a giant leap for mankind. These days, Apollo 11 would be cancelled and the moon placed off-limits.

Meanwhile, we fervent boomers had no intention of keeping six feet apart. Instead, almost half a million trekked to Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York for four days of love, drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

It would forever be known as Woodstock. Strange, although the Hong Kong flu would eventually claim up to four million souls, it’s that peace and love festival best recalled. Not the fear and loathing.

We would do well to remember that today. Hey, after all, it was us that picked the higher path, back then.

So let’s give today’s kids a break. Hey, we’re not exactly leaving them that imaginary Age of Aquarius to inherit, after all.