I Know Nothing But I'm Not Sgt. Schultz

In one way, we're already living in the new world. In the new world, we have long, thoughtful, sometime-heated conversations about whether we will willingly enter the same room with the people we love most in the world.

I've been sheltering with my wife and my son from the beginning. I'm going to be 70 in July; my wife is not far behind. We both take medication for high blood pressure. We will definitely not volunteer as tribute to herd immunity.

My primary goal is simple: Don't get the coronavirus. Nothing is more important. Does that mean, then, that we don't spend time in the same room as our other son, daughter-in-law, and first-and-only grandbaby? Does that mean that my wife does not enter a room containing any of her four siblings and/or their large families?

My wife and I are active in the regional theater community, and she remarked the other day that most of our social life consists of the very pleasant and satisfying interactions we have with them as we construct a performance. There will come a time when theater is “opened up,” but the virus will still be among us. What then?

Like so many somewhat complex problems, the way to work through this one is step by step, examining the data and probabilities. Place values on what you want, and what the risks are, and do the math.

But to do that you need data. You need to know things. In this new world – as opposed, we hope, to the new world of six months or a year from now – we know almost nothing. Every day it's something new, and something old is wrong. Numbers turn out to be not only inaccurate, but purposefully manipulated to obscure meaning. Models come and go with dizzying speed. Authorities we look to for leadership and information consciously disagree and undermine each other. When it really comes down to it, no one actually knows anything.

So for now, it's Zoom, and quick, careful missions to the grocery store. And sitting on the cold, windy beach, far apart from my wife's sister and her family, wondering when we'll ever get to share another meal.