This Is Not the Time To Flinch.

You have cabin fever, and you can't stand it any more?  Me, too.  You can't work, or not like before, and your income is way down?  Same here.

The region, and the country, and the world, have come to a standstill.  (Except for lawyers and palmetto bugs.)  No one can, or is willing to, function, because no one wants to get infected with the coronavirus.  And getting infected means getting close to someone else who is infected, and no one knows who that is.  I'm reminded, by the way, of a survey someone did 30 or so years ago in which college students were asked anonymously if they would tell a sexual partner they were HIV+, if they knew they were.  A shocking proportion-- it seems to me it was 25% or more-- said they wouldn't.  So you can't rely on the decency and fellow feeling of other people.

If you don't want to get sick, and take the risk of getting other people sick, and maybe dying, you have to keep to yourself.  You have to stay home.  (Again, this does not apply to lawyers or palmetto bugs.  Palmetto bugs don't get coronavirus disease, and lawyers have more pressing agendas than staying well.)

This presents huge problems.  It's not easy to keep yourself afloat.  If you don't have savings, and you can't earn money, and whoever sends you bills only wants you to pay them, then you're potentially in big trouble.  One of your big creditors, the IRS, has changed the due date for your first 2020 tax payment from April to July.  So if you pay quarterly, then you have a reprieve.  Will they really want your first 2020 payment in July?  It remains to be seen.  No one can predict anything about this coronavirus.  Don't forget that.  NO ONE CAN PREDICT ANYTHING ABOUT THIS CORONAVIRUS!

Also, most of the elements of your social networking have collapsed, at least if you're doing what you should be doing.  You still have the telephone, and you still have FaceTime (or equivalent), and you still have e-mail.  But you can't physically meet up with your friends and relatives, and you can't touch anyone.  This hurts.  My daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren moved two days ago.  My daughter wanted me to come up in March, to help pack, to help out, and to see them.  Flights were $18 each way between here and Boston.  In other words, the trip was free.  Nope, I couldn't do it.

Everyone is so tired of this.  Well, not the lawyers or the palmetto bugs, none of which have noticed.  Everyone wants this to be over already.  The earliest stupid talk was of allowing, or even encouraging, people to be active, and keep functioning, and spend money.  Those were the people whose understanding of the definition of a problem was that it was something that had adverse implications for the economy.  The slightly later stupid talk was choosing a target date when the country would "re-open," and they arbitrarily, but sentimentally, chose "Easter."  That was yesterday.  And there were some morons who said not only that this was still a good plan, but some of them were preachers who requested a church full of parishioners, and proposed that "god" would protect believers from the coronavirus.

Even one of the heroes of the coronavirus crisis, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of NY, is now starting to talk about "maybe May 1."  That's May 1, as in 2 1/2 weeks from now.

There are two "supporting" theories for talk like this.  One is that no one, except the lawyers and the palmetto bugs, can stand it any more, and everyone wants their lives back.  In that sense, anyone could pick any soon-approaching date, and people would be relieved and happy.  This is clearly childlike, but it's also common.  The second theory, which sounds as if it was rational and possibly even intelligent, is that as reported new cases increase at a slower rate, which is what people call the "flattening of the curve" (the known and reported new case rate is still increasing, it's just doing it at a less accelerated rate), then, the theory goes, the whole pandemic can be considered to be slowing, and this is taken as an indicator that it's under something someone would like to propose is "control," and we can normalize our lives and functioning.

Here are the problems.  First, if the new case rate is increasing, then nothing is under control.  Going out in that is grossly foolish.  What we need really is no new cases.  Not a slower acceleration of new cases.  Not the same number of new cases from one day to the next.  And not even fewer new cases one day than there were the day before.  NO new cases.  And we need that for at least a few days in a row.  That's not to say we need no new hospitalizations, or no new deaths.  Those were people who already got infected, maybe weeks ago.  We just need nobody getting newly infected any more.  Which leads to problem #2.  How would we know if no one was newly infected?  We don't test everyone.  We test very few people.  Our government, and private industry, have failed us, and they have not developed and made widely available tests for the coronavirus.  So it's a little tricky to address problem #1 because of problem #2.  We test many of the people who get sick, if they come to medical attention, but that's not nearly enough of a sample.  And it's too limited and too late.  Problem #3 is complicated, because of the unpredictability of "immunity."  There are many patterns of immunity, and they're not the same as each other.  Superficially, immunity means that if someone has been exposed to something, then his system has a mechanism to recognize and remember it, and his system will repel that thing next time it comes around.  For something like a virus, that means either that the person has had the infection, and his system will now recognize and remember it, and he won't get it again, or he's been deliberately and artificially exposed (by vaccination) to something extremely closely related to this virus, or part of it, so his system will repel the actual virus, if it comes around.  But no one knows what immunity to the coronavirus is like.  No one knows for sure if there is real immunity, or if or how long immunity will last.  And we can't even begin the inquiry, because of problem #2.  And problem #4 is that no one knows if, how, and when this coronavirus will recede and recur.  Is it like, let's say, the flu viruses, and it will calm down in the summer, then regroup and mutate itself, and come roaring back in the fall?  Will it never relent, and just keep on wreaking destruction?  Will it not mutate, and we'll develop an effective vaccine, which will work long term, and no one who survives the coronavirus will ever get it again?  No...one...knows.

NO ONE CAN PREDICT ANYTHING ABOUT THIS CORONAVIRUS!  We cannot make assumptions.  We cannot plan for anything.  Easter?  May 1?  The summer?  In time for the school year, or the NFL season?  Nonsense.  It's a very dumb guessing game, and there's no point in engaging in it.  As stupid as is the appearance of the people who carried signs stating the date of the end of the world, the next day after the world didn't end, that's how stupid appear the people who said this would be over by Easter (yesterday), or who encouraged believers to revel in the protection of churches.

Hunker down.  Reach out to the people you know.  Find ways to connect with people you didn't know.  Ask for help.  Last night, I got a call from a guy I know, and I know him because I met him at an art talk at MOCA, and I later bought some pieces of his art.  He and his wife make contact with me from time to time, really about nothing.  "Just thinking of you" kind of thing.  Last night, he wanted to make sure I was OK, and to let me know about programs and provisions for "seniors."  It's that obvious?  Oh, well.  But it was nice to hear from him.

Don't assume anything.  And if you can't help it, and you feel compelled to form assumptions, assume this will last at least for the balance of 2020.  Be pleasantly surprised, if it doesn't.  But it might.  Do you know when Ebola and HIV finally went away?  They never did.  Polio did, except for the morons who are antivaxxers.

Don't flinch.  This country-- the good old US of A-- is not the most populous country on earth.  But it has more coronavirus deaths than any other country, even the most populous country, which happens to be the country in which the coronavirus started.  We just haven't been careful enough.  To our credit, we as citizens have been more careful than our so-called "leaders" have advised us to be.  It could have been worse.  But we have to stay strong.  And tight.  We have to wait.  Stay at home.  If you go out, wear a mask.  Use Instacart.  Do without.  Whatever you can do.  But don't get cocky, and don't misinterpret comparatively slightly less than totally pessimistic news.

It's possible things will change permanently here, and in this country, and in the world.  That may happen.  Some people-- some very much in the know-- are already even wondering if it's an unnecessary, and maybe even dangerous, gesture for people to shake hands with each other, ever again. Sounds crazy, right?  It's a new world, and we can't know.  We certainly can't guess.  And we don't have to.

If you need help, gulp hard, and tell someone.