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3 ways the Coronavirus will change us
Going the social distance
March 11, 2020 is a day I’ll remember. For the first time since September 11, 2001, I felt that the future would be very different from what I thought it would be the day before.
Before 3/11, I was of course aware of COVID-19. Nursing homes where loved ones live were refusing visitors on account of the Coronavirus, but they might have anyway because it’s still flu season. Also, overseas travel plans of extended family were impacted. I knew the stock markets were off the rails and international tourism was tanking. Earlier in the week, we learned that some government officials, in America and abroad, had the virus.
It still didn’t really hit home for me, however, until 3/11. That’s the day the NCAA announced that its basketball tournaments would be played to empty arenas. For the first time in several years, I turned on the TV to watch the national news.
That evening, it was announced that Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson had COVID-19. Then we learned that a Utah Jazz player had it. Then the NBA suspended play, and President Trump spoke to the nation and imposed a ban on travel from Europe. (That I didn’t watch; since the mid-00’s, I’ve avoided Presidential speeches like, well, the Plague.) On the evening 3/11, I knew this was going to get huge.
