I’m getting tired of Covid restrictions. There is too much of can’t do this and must do that. It’s unnatural to live this way.

I suppose sometimes getting annoyed and blue about it is to be expected, but such feelings are unworthy of one in my situation. I lack for nothing material. I have none of the ancillary problems of isolation – not overeating, overdrinking, drug abuse, marital conflict, or mental illness. Covid death has come no closer to me than the television screen. For me to complain, is to act like the small boy I ran into once in an Upper West Side grocery store. His mother wouldn’t let him have a candy bar, so he shrieked over and over “I WANT WHAT I WANT WHEN I WANT IT!”.  (Eventually, a cashier won the gratitude of all other shoppers by telling him and mama to leave the store.)

I usually don’t complain. but a few days ago, Ann and I did allow ourselves to say to each other that living like this feels pretty bad sometimes. I’ve been trying to figure out why, since in our case, we have so far faced mostly just  inconvenience.

Disruption in usual patterns is one reason. We don’t eat out, not even at a sidewalk table, or go to concerts or travel farther than walking distance from the apartment. This is not especially bothersome in itself, but we are by nature inflexible, so it’s annoying. In pre-Covid years, I would take a break in the middle of the afternoon – anytime I had the urge – and go around the corner to Moonstruck Diner for coffee and a piece of pie. I like sitting at lunch counters and talking with whoever is on the next stool – a lot – and I WANT WHAT I WANT WHEN I WANT IT!

Of more force than these changes is the absence of physical contact with other humans. “Social distancing” does not come close to suggesting the full impact of this protocol. Zoom calls and facetime are welcome stopgap measures, but they are not the equivalent of an embrace, a handshake, a kiss.

This strange way of behaving has been going on a long time. And you don’t get used to it; on the contrary, it grows ever more wearing. At least, that’s how it is with me.

These measures would be less bothersome if so many Americans were not neglecting them, or worse, opposing them for ill-conceived and indefensible political reasons. A sense of taking on this disease as a country, together, is absent. During World War II, people complained about rationing, and some cheated the system, but overall, we were unified in a determination to defeat the enemy by following some rules. My mother – lots of mothers, I’m sure – learned to make one-egg cakes, and she did it cheerfully. A blackout was a blackout; no one got to drive around with their lights on because they thought the rule against it infringed on individual freedom.

Alteration of behavior in the interest of public health is something we’ve done many times.

I have an early memory of a health department official tacking a quarantine notice on the front door. My brother and I had scarlet fever. It happened that neither of us felt sick, but it was a major public health issue, so, we had to stay in bed for a couple of weeks, and visitors were not allowed into the house. I’m sure my dad went to work (he had an “essential” job), but I doubt Mother went out, if it could be avoided. It never occurred to my parents to let us go out and play because they were inconvenienced by making us stay in bed no matter how bored we were and certainly not because they thought the quarantine was an instance of government overreach. I don’t remember, but I’m pretty sure they welcomed the quarantine as a good-sense practice. And, if they had ignored the quarantine, there would have been legal consequences.

Before polio vaccines were developed, children were required to take naps, swimming pools were closed, and theaters – if they were open – warned people not to sit close together.

Within the lifetimes of many people alive today, smallpox vaccinations were mandatory; no exceptions. In 1980, the WHO declared smallpox “eliminated.”

In the not-too-distant past, tuberculosis tests were administered universally at school.

Now, wearing masks, frequent thorough handwashing, and social distancing are thought by millions to be an unwarranted intrusion on personal liberty.They are not. No one has a right to cause another person to contract a possibly fatal illness.