After Social Distancing, a Strange Purgatory Awaits

Defying all medical advice, and ignoring the nature of viral infections, President Donald Trump wants to see "a very powerful reopening plan" by May 1. Two groups of governors—one in the West Coast states and another in the Northeast—are vowing to coordinate efforts to ease social distancing, if not on Trump's terms then on their own. Still, in a recent statement, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a member of the West Coast group, listed a variety of medical and health benchmarks for ending the lockdown, none of which seems likely to be met very soon. He admitted as much, warning we shouldn't get "ahead of ourselves."

Anyway, most of the decisions that matter aren't in the hands of presidents or governors; American society as a whole needs a plan for what comes next. The coronavirus is revolutionary not just because of the suffering it has caused, but because it—like other diseases, from the bubonic plague to malaria to HIV—has the power to shape social norms for years to come. Those norms change with surprising speed. For most people, the prospect of sitting at home for months was almost unthinkable at the beginning of March....