IS COVID-19 RUINING YOUR LIFE?

You haven't had the coronavirus (COVID-19).  Chances are you never will.  You don't know anyone who has had the cornovirus.  Chances are you never will.

In spite of that, COVID-19 may be ruining your life.

You can't go out to eat at a restaurant. You can't go into your bank.  Your kids can't go to school.  The Social Security office is closed. You can't go to a movie. Your drug store may only welcome you to their drive through window. You can't get your teeth cleaned. You can't get a tooth filled or a wart removed. The courthouse isn't holding court. All government offices have shut down. You can't go to the beach.  You can't attend any gathering of 25 or more people unless you can sit 6 feet away from the nearest person (I wonder who measures that).....

No one wants to be seen as doing any less than anyone else to fight the coronovirus.  So everyone does more.  

All of us hope these extreme efforts are successful and protects us from the virus. So far in Alabama, there have been about 75 infections and, thankfully, no deaths.  (Of course, this changes daily).

It would be one thing if these measures were expected to last for a week or two.  But no one knows how long it will be before all these restrictions are lifted.  People talk about 3 months, 6 months, 18 months...  Nobody knows. 

We also hope that, when this is over, we can go back to normal.  But that isn't likely.  Just perhaps, the "new normal" will become permanent to some degree.  It's hard to go back.  Who knows how many trillion dollars all this will cost to the local, state and national economies?  How long will it take a small business to recover and rebuild from being closed a few weeks or a few months?  Is it possible to rebuild and recover?  For many, it simply will not be an option.

Whose fault is the cornovirus?  Nobody's.  Who bears responsibility for the response to it?  Every decision maker who gets input into the response.

The one thing we must keep out of decision making is Panic.

I suspect sociologists and historians, writing from the vantage point of the future, will look back at the coronovirus and our responses to it, as the defining events of the Twenty-First Century.  For that to be true, it must have changed us more, and more permanently, than any other event of the century.  I fear that may be true.  I also fear that today's leaders have no idea how much our society is being changed, or for how long.