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When the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) declared the novel coronavirus's spread a pandemic, I wondered what might come next. Before the CDC announcement, I was in an active state of denial. Sometimes I thought the constant chatter in the news about the virus an exaggeration. In the couple of weeks before the governor ordered my state of Massachusetts into shutdown, I went to a large dinner party with psychoanalyst friends. I attended seminars at my institute, taught classes, and continued to meet with all my patients.
I recall that on one of those days leading up to the shutdown, I was returning to my office from an impromptu lunch at a local restaurant, which would typically have been impossible to visit without a reservation. The streets were already emptying, and I felt relieved by the quieting of the everyday bustle. I saw a colleague in the lobby who looked dazed. She expressed fear about feeling unwell and worried that she might have the virus (we later learned she did not). She was mostly terrified that she might have infected others. She told me she would not attend our evening seminar and asked if I could bring her into the meeting via Zoom. Only she and I were to attend that class, as our other colleague was out of the