I was supposed to go to Philadelphia yesterday to visit my cousin, and even yesterday morning I thought for sure I would still go. I’d be taking the train, not flying; my cousin is my age, not older, and not high risk; I was still working and taking the subway as of Tuesday, so it wouldn’t be much different; it would be easy to come back to NYC if needed. Also, I was only going for 48 hours and it was looking like it might be my last trip anywhere for a long time.
I didn’t go because by yesterday afternoon things felt so different from how they felt 48 hours earlier that I could imagine everything would feel that much or more different (the exponential growth of a collective feeling of dread, if you will) by the time I got back to NYC on Saturday. There was a definite shift towards buying groceries, staying away from the subways, and working from home. I’m not super worried about getting coronavirus myself – though I’d prefer not to – but if it’s easy for me to stay in, not get infected, and not potentially infect higher risk people around me, well, obviously I should do those things.
I have students who are taking the ACT in April and are wondering if it’s going to be canceled. It’s hard for me to resist cracking a joke about how keeping students six feet apart from one another is just good anti-cheating practice, regardless of what state or stage of pandemic we’re in (and why is it that high school and college cheating is so frequently referred to as “epidemic”? That’s a rhetorical question).
I’d much rather do these things now and have people look back and say “we overreacted” (note: I do not think we’re remotely overreacting) – if the worst thing that comes from overreacting is a surplus of rice and cliff bars and a little less vitamin D, why not overreact, when the worst that could come from failing to act is so dire? The situations in Italy and Iran are dire and we have the benefit of being a few weeks behind them during the course of this. Preparation and proactivity don’t necessitate panic. They prevent future panic.
