It took coronavirus two weeks to turn us from people eating side by side in restaurants, standing jam-packed in concerts or on public transit and walking down crowded streets into wary lone wolves sizing up anyone approaching us and detouring around other people.
In two weeks coronavirus has divided us into two sectors. Standing on the frontline battling the disease are the people most of us never used to think about until we interacted with them — doctors, nurses, grocery clerks, police officers, EMTs, firefighters, the takeout guy.
Their dedication and courage has laid bare the underpinning of our economy and social order for all of us to see. Coronavirus has made us question the unthinkable: Can hospitals and groceries stay open? Can manufacturers, suppliers and truck drivers keep producing and rolling down the road?
The rest of us, except for that small minority committed to upholding their right to do exactly what they want to do, are in the homefront sector. We are using a new phrase — social isolation — to describe working at home cheek to jowl with partners, spouses, kids, mom and dad and the pets.
We are isolating ourselves from as many other human beings as possible in order, or so the experts tell us, to give the frontline warriors a fighting chance to beat coronavirus.
All around us the non-human world goes on its merry way: trees and flowers are budding, spring is slowly warming into summer. Even as we slog along day by day, we’re clinging to hopes of consigning coronavirus to a bad memory and bursting from our homes with hugs for everyone and money to spend at restaurants.
We know it won’t work exactly that way.
Gradually, by fits and starts, we will emerge nationally and globally from this silent deadly disease. Life will improve, fear will wane and then coronavirus will rear its ugly head somewhere and we will temporarily retreat into isolation.
As things get better, the blame-fixers will point their accusing fingers and the hand-wringers will say, “What if…why didn’t we…”
In one way or another, coronavirus will change all of us. Hopefully, its legacy will be increased compassion and a more sober understanding of how fragile our lives really are.
