The Crisis Could Last 18 Months. Be Prepared.

Get your battle rhythm, I keep telling myself, as I put on my oversize sweatpants for the third day in a row. Staying inside, away from our offices, routines, and community, feels jarring even for those who, on a rational level, understand the need for extreme social distancing. The good side is having more family time. But everything seems upended, even to homeland-security professionals who argued for upending everything to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Just as seasickness abates once you can see the shore, the disruptions that the country is now experiencing would be easier to manage if we knew they would end soon. The community-isolation effort happened remarkably fast—within days, whole communities all but closed down, and earlier this week the federal government finally recommended the same. On Thursday, Governor Gavin Newsom ordered the entire state of California to stay home "until further notice." But the way the crisis ends will be far more muddled. There isn't going to be one all-clear signal—and certainly not one anytime soon.

As the days and weeks in isolation go by, and the shock of What just happened? turns to Family time is overrated, people will become more insistent on knowing two things: When will the pandemic end? And when can we go back to normal? Those questions have different answers, and the answer to the latter—far from being a purely scientific decision—will be guided by ice-cold moral and political calculations that nobody wants to discuss out loud....