“And the meek shall inherit the Earth.”

Somehow, I don’t think the writer was thinking about the survivors of a coronavirus pandemic when he penned that phrase.

But fate has a strange way of playing out sometimes.

Clearly, adults on this planet have done a pretty crappy job of things, what with all the fussing and fighting and raping and polluting of “our fair sister,” as Jim Morrison referred to Mother Earth in When the Music’s Over.

It’s no surprise, then, that adults are bungling the response to the pandemic in most places. It’s all about money, of course, just as it has always been for grown-ups. They want to get economies moving again. They want kids back in schools so their parents can go back to offices and factories — and replenish the tax coffers. They want to see bustling cities.

Quebec’s plan is to send youngsters back to school in a couple of weeks. They’ll be expected to wear masks in the hallways, but can remove them in classrooms — classrooms that have sealed windows and old ventilation systems.

What could go wrong?

Sigh. You don’t have to be a genius …

While kids might not be die from the virus or even show any ill effects, they will transmit it to adults.  No ifs, ands or buts about it. Their parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts and older sisters and brothers will catch it from them.

Little wonder that medical authorities are already predicting the second wave in the pandemic will be worse than the first.

Adults will be dropping . . . like flies.

Political authorities seem undeterred. It’s the economy, you know.

They’re not thinking clearly. They won’t let go of a system that doesn’t work in a pandemic. They could let youngsters get their education through virtual classrooms, as some colleges will be doing this fall. But that would mean some parents would have to stay home to supervise them.

So who will supervise the children when their parents are sickened by the coronavirus? Who will take care of them when COVID-19 kills their parents?

Nobody?

In Lord of the Flies, William Golding gave us a chilling picture of what could happen to kids left to their own devices. It was fiction, of course, but it is a cautionary tale.

Many of today’s children could become orphans before the pandemic is over.

Who would take care of them in a world where much of the adult population has been wiped out?

You know the sci-fi writers will be all over this, if the virus doesn’t kill or cripple them.

— Jillian