According to the CDC, the coronavirus survival rate is right around 99.6 percent. For people aged 0-19, the survival rate is something like 99.997 percent. For those under 70, the survival rate is somewhere between 99.5 percent and 99.997 percent. And look at what we’re doing to children during Christmas: We’re putting little kids in masks when they visit Santa Claus, and we’re sequestering Santa inside a plastic bubble, or behind a plastic shield.
One mall Santa, in Lone Tree, Colorado, reports the Wall Street Journal, “wore a face shield and sat behind a sheet of plexiglass. [The kids] passed him [their] list underneath the barrier and talked to him through an intercom system.”
Kids have to talk to Santa on an intercom.
And that seems to be the best you can do in the lunatic asylum anti-science alarmists have turned our country into. In some stores, you have to call Santa on the phone or have a — no joke — Zoom meeting with Mr. Claus.
“Nordstrom is offering 15-minute video calls with Santa,” per the Wall Street Journal, while “Macy’s is offering a festive online holiday experience” this year that includes interactive games and a computer-generated selfie with Santa.”
“In New Jersey, the Reeds at Shelter Haven hotel provided Zoom calls with Santa recently,” the report adds. “When Santa appeared on the screen, he says, the children thought it was a YouTube video, or that they were Zooming into school.”
Even Santa visits moved outdoors involve face masks and social distancing. “Some are taking the whole experience outdoors, with masks and 6-foot-distancing,” per the report. What? Why don’t they just pretend they’re rioting? That would put an end to all this nonsense.
This is just another example of the cure being worse than the disease. The dominant culture in this country used to protect children from fear. We used to work as hard as possible to project normality for them, to not let them see the truth of things. This was a good thing. The longer you can protect a child’s innocence (without over-sheltering them), the more stable, grounded, and secure they will be as children and adults.
But look at what we’re doing to children over a virus with the survival rates listed above. This is nuts, and it’s going to do much more damage in the long run. Removing stability from a child’s life, instilling unnecessary fear in them before you have taught them the necessary coping skills, is cruel, and in this case, unnecessary.
There is no valid reason why parents and those who choose to sit as Santa Claus should not be allowed to make their own choices. If a grown man in a Santa Claus suit is willing to allow children to sit on his lap, and parents are okay with that, it should be happening.
Those who are not comfortable with it can shield themselves behind masks and plastic and intercoms.
The tragedy of this is that even if a mall made that decision, the harpies and busybodies, and society’s moral terrorists at CNNLOL and the like, would pour toxic hate all over it for allowing Santa and parents to make that choice.
Kids need stability. Structure. Routine. They need to be able to count on things, on ritual and what’s going to happen tomorrow. Instead of protecting them, even with the documented survival rates listed above, we’re closing schools, and now we’re stealing one of America’s great rituals away from them, and using that ritual to terrify them.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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