On my boring house and why I'm staying in it
Like most people, I’ve spent almost every moment of the last few months in my house due to the novel coronavirus. Like most people, I’m a bit tired of my house.
Now, to be clear, I like my house, and I like the people I live with — my wife and my 18-month-old son. They’re pretty cool, and they don’t give me too much trouble for being…you know…the way that I tend to be.
But this week — the week that my team finishes its biggest annual project (our 400-page summer edition magazine) — has been particularly hard to stay inside. Normally, when my team finishes the project, I have a bit of a ritual. I usually:
Take a weekday off from work
Get a haircut (I’m usually very due for one by then)
See a movie by myself
Now, I could do the first one — though I’ve been working at home for the last three months, so spending another day in my friendly confines isn’t as appealing as it would be. The second one is semi-available but not particularly necessary at the moment. And the third one is out of the question, as movie theaters remain shuttered for foreseeable future.
And so, this week — what is supposed to be a moment of exhaling, of relaxation, of relief — is instead falling into the category of Another Week In COVID World.
But when I take more than a second to think about it, I’m OK with that.
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There’s a new catch-phrase that’s all the rage, running around the Internet. It’s particularly prevalent among people who want you to know that they are very tough.
If you’re scared, stay home.
That’s become a common refrain from people whenever you suggest anything approaching caution with regards to the coronavirus.
“I’m not sure we should be re-opening as aggressively as we are.” If you’re scared, stay home.
“The number of COVID-19 cases are increasing in this county.” If you’re scared, stay home.
“Companies should give hazard pay to employees working in these circumstances.” If you’re scared, stay home.
It’s a pithy five-word retort, easy to type and fun to say, and it’s got the delightful double-pronged bonus of insulting the receiver and bolstering the issuant. There’s a subtext that really makes it effective: You’re a coward, especially compared to me, who is strong.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen that exact five-word phrase (and different variations) over the past few weeks. It’s astounding that this has become the rallying cry of so many, considering it completely and entirely misses the point.
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I’m 33 years old. I’m in pretty good health, although I probably need to hop back on the diet-and-exercise bandwagon (the Quarantine 15 is real). I have health insurance through my employer. If I get the coronavirus, there is a really, really good chance that I’ll be fine. Maybe I’ll be stuck in bed for a week or two; there’s an off-chance that I’ll end up in the hospital for a spell. But let’s be honest: based on what we know about COVID-19, it’s very unlikely to end my life.
My wife is my age. Good health, exercise, health insurance. She’s very unlikely to be killed by COVID-19.
My son Hank is 18 months old. Kid knows a lot of words — mostly truck and variations of truck and also did I tell you about truck? While there’s now some concern that it can trigger something close to Kawasaki disease, it’s still very unlikely that he’ll be killed by COVID-19.
That’s not why I’m staying at home.
I’m not even staying at home for my parents or my in-laws or my wife’s grandparents, all of whom are more likely to suffer a tragic fate at the hands of COVID-19 than I am.
I’m not staying home as a political statement, even though somehow, some way, a virus has become a political wedge, despite the scientific fact that — and I can’t stress this enough — the virus doesn’t know who you voted for.
The reason I’m staying home as much as possible is to protect people whose circumstances I don’t know. Because if I become a vector of infection, the only way to control how many people I infect is to stay away from as many people as possible.
That means I’m wearing a mask at the store and at work. That means I’m not going out to bars or restaurants. That means I might have to turn down social occasions and get-togethers for a while. That means I’m probably going to get more bored of my house.
Because while I’m very likely to survive any infection I catch, I’m also pretty likely to encounter someone with a pre-existing condition, or someone who is much older than me, or someone who doesn’t have health insurance. And if I pass the virus on to them, they’re a lot less likely to have a positive outcome than I am. Maybe real courage comes not in proving to a virus how fearless you are, but in thinking of others.
I’m not scared of the coronavirus. But I am staying home, as boring as it may be.