Commentary: What will daily life look like on the other side of the pandemic?
Anthony Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and a trusted voice on the White House coronavirus task force, said this week that he hopes to see "light at the end of the tunnel" for the U.S. by the end of the month: The other side of the curve, however much we succeed in flattening it by ceasing economic and social activity in order to stay home and slow community spread.
Yet even then, there is a danger of resuming normal activity too quickly, which could lead to successive surges in COVID-19 cases and additional strain on hospital systems before widespread treatment and vaccine are available.
Whenever normalcy arrives, how different will it look compared to daily life before this happened?
Let’s talk about wearing masks, shaking hands, and staying clean.
Wearing a mask is not so ridiculous
In late January, just a short time ago, I was in Santa Fe to report on the legislative session when I saw someone at the Capitol wearing a cotton mask and it struck me as strange.
A short leap through time and I’m wearing a mask for essential grocery shopping, and most of the other shoppers in the store have them, too.
Mask photos have become commonplace on social media, especially as people find supplies of cotton masks with attractive designs. The attraction to fashionable masks may even represent something like the bargaining stage of grief: Fine, I accept there is a dangerous pandemic, I'm stuck at home, the economy is kaput and I'm being told to wear a mask if I leave my house, but darn it, I can still look cool.
Perhaps masks will find increasing acceptance, if on the other side of this curve we find greater awareness of communicable disease and an ethic of preserving public health.
Reconsider shaking hands
Shaking hands has long historical roots, but that need not stop us from adopting new forms and clasping hands less often. People can, and do, greet each other with nods and polite bows.
If there was anything to the old commonplace that handshaking originated as a gesture proving that neither party was carrying a weapon, we can acknowledge now that it isn't a hidden rock or knife we need to worry about.
"I don't think we should ever shake hands ever again, to be honest with you," Fauci told the Wall Street Journal last week. "Not only would it be good to prevent coronavirus disease; it probably would decrease instances of influenza dramatically in this country."
Be less gross
Now, what about a sustained habit of washing our hands several times a day?
I have witnessed enough of my fellow human beings in public restrooms and communal housing to know that a gigantic subset of our species regularly wipes its unwashed hands on itself, other people, door handles, and everything else.
This observation leaves me neither fearful nor germaphobic, but cause and effect are plain. We are kind of gross, and being less sloppy might make for lighter flu seasons once we are all in the same rooms again, instead of talking to each other on Zoom.