The Milwaukee Brewers open their 2021 season today in a day game against the Minnesota Twins. Fans will be back in attendance, as stadium officials are allowing 25% of capacity.

If you look at the Brewers website, you will see a list of COVID protocols. One of them is as follows: “American Family Field is certified by the Global Biorisk Advisory Council “GBAC”, a comprehensive system of cleaning, disinfection, and infectious disease prevention.” (I know, it’s an awkward sentence, but I didn’t write or edit it.)

Growing up, we were allowed and encouraged to go play and get into as much as possible. Some kids ate sand (never my preference), others snacked on lead paint, some were just content to eat their own snot. Either way, kids were exposed to a lot of germs and bugs, and that was seen as a good thing. Each exposure was an opportunity to build our immune systems and make us stronger in the face of germs we’d be exposed to in our daily lives.

To my knowledge, “the science” hasn’t changed on this.

But in the wake of COVID, we’re throwing all of that learning and perspective out the window and sterilizing the hell out of everything we can, setting back an entire generation of our children in their attempts to build their immune system and prepare for all of the germs that are out there in the world.

All in the name of “following the science.”

Aren’t we supposed to get smarter as we carry on living on this planet?