This is all feels both scary and surreal and part of what's hard about getting our minds around it is searching for some kind of analogue or precedent. But there really isn't a perfect one.
Probably the closest comparison is to disaster preparation and the recovery after something like Katrina, or war-time mobilization. But neither of those exactly fit and in ways, I actually think can give some cause for solace.
In the case of a disaster it comes and destroys things and then leaves fairly quickly and we have to pick up the pieces as a society. This will last longer. And unlike a war there is no enemy to fight, no violence to be done that can create a victory.
But also, this is a kind of cause for some hope. Disasters and wars kill people and also destroy enormous amounts of a society that must be physically rebuilt. In this case there should be no physical destruction.
If we as a society and our various levels of government can rise to the moment and supply the resources necessary -- health care surge capacity, edicts for social distancing, relief for all those whose lives and livelihoods have been thrown into chaos -- we can come back..
We can come back to a society and nation that has all of the physical capacity it had. This is a people-first problem. We need to look out for *people*, particularly the most vulnerable to the illness.
More than that we need to take care of each other, all of us together, and think about the kind of society we want where that's the guiding principle even without a pandemic.
