The virus is impervious to arbitrary dates for "opening back up"

We're going to have to take our cue from public-health experts for a while yet

Probably the most pressing of the great looming questions we face in this crisis moment is when, how and where to begin to re-open society to civic life and economic activity.

The current state of affairs lends itself to some takes that, on the one hand, must be given serious consideration, but on the other, must not be regarded as the last word.

I understand the danger of excessive enforcement of social distancing. Reasonable voices are warning about it. Some instances have occurred around the country that have more than a hint of police state tactics about them. The 19-year-old woman in Pennsylvania who was arrested for driving alone in her car, with no intention of getting out until she returned home, certainly qualifies as Exhibit A. I myself go for change-of-scenery drives every day or two. (Not too far, since gasoline must be conserved.)

One can find reasonable discussions about the need to balance health expertise with other pressing considerations. A recent conversation between Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn and Associate Vice President for Curriculum David Whalen qualifies.

As everyone basically agrees, the lockdown cannot go on for an extended period of time. There’s not only an economic toll. Human beings aren’t designed to live this way. We’re social animals. The other day, I had a conversation with the guy stocking bananas at my local Kroger and he said a major problem for the store is people coming in to hang out. They don’t even buy anything. That’s called being starved for interaction. No matter how refined one’s techniques for staying upbeat, if one is honest, there’s an emotional toll to this.

A discomforting number of people taking the open-the-country-back-up-sooner-rather-than-later are just plain kooky. They come in a variety of stripes, but two that seem to show up the most are religious or Trumpist. Memo to the first bunch: God forgives sins, but we’re on our own regarding the consequences of foolish choices. Memo to the second: If your wish for an all-systems-go status by an arbitrary date were to come true, a resurgence of the spread would be on you.

It’s also true that the longer we’re in lockdown, the more we’re using government as the final backstop that individuals, businesses, nonprofits, mortgage companies and banks rely on, and that can’t go on forever, given that government was already perilously awash in unfunded liabilities.

But Doctors Birx and Fauci are serious people, and they say that until we have the tools at hand to know how, how fast, and where this thing is spreading, as well as some kind of tools, short of a vaccine, which is months down the road, for providing people with something like a cure, we can’t assume the risk of “getting back to normal.” And bear in mind that, even if we tamp this down to the point of being able to relax social distancing this summer, a second wave is coming later in the year.

We’re up against a reminder that nature still has the upper hand vis-a-vis human material advancement. A severe thunderstorm squall came through our area last night. There were tornado warnings for nearby locations. We got straight-line winds that sent trash totes flying down the street. As my wife and I stood on our front step and watched, it was brought home to me that there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

Proverbs 16:9 seems applicable here: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.”

It’s important to have concern about economic fallout, compassion for the mental-health toll this is taking on people, and to harbor an eagerness to repair, build and in general exercise our power as creative beings, but we also need to have a proper respect for forces that are aspects of God’s creation that don’t readily acquiesce to our inclination to subdue everything in our path.