THERE ARE A LOT OF WAYS the novel coronavirus is destroying the United States and the world. We are now in the worst place this country may have ever been. Nevertheless, it is the psychological that this column will address.
We know that when you put two people in a single room and say, “Stay there,” the people will get on each other’s nerves. It is not surprising, therefore, that the police have been getting an unprecedented number of domestic abuse calls. Additionally, the virus itself is so ill-defined and little understood that we have turned this country into a nation of hypochondriacs. Frankly, I’ve always been concerned about my health as well as about our politics. The problem is exacerbated when the two of them coincide; everybody is getting up in the middle the night and worrying about their perceived symptoms, ranging from a sniffle to a cough to a vague muscle pain. That’s when we start to absolutely believe that we have caught the dread disease. There’s a reason for that. Read more…