I want to make a small point about all these cancellations and closures and postponements we're seeing — WonderCon, Disneyland, Broadway…even the real important ones like the unveiling of the Bullwinkle & Rocky statue. We may well look back some day and decide some of this was unnecessary but we can't say that now, at least with any certainty. You might be washing your hands way more often than you need to…but we don't know. And when you don't know and peoples' lives are in jeopardy, you err on the side of possible over-caution. You have to. So keep on washing 'em.
We're also eliminating a lot of uncertainty. I was set to host six panels at WonderCon and to spend three days there. I felt that if they were going to hold it, I was going to go…but I'm 68 years old now and one of the consistent things we're hearing about the COVID-19 pandemic is that it's really rough on folks, age seventy and up. 68 is way too close to 70. A few days ago, I became convinced they'd have to postpone the con but it wasn't until I got the text message this morning that I felt a small but present weight lift off me: That's one thing I don't have to think about.
I am not worried about the virus. I'm worried about not doing the right things in a tricky situation. Contracting it might be inevitable but you want to do everything in your power to minimize the possibility. I feel a bit better today because I'm making some adjustments in how I live for the time being which I think will do that. And I don't have to keep thinking about whether to brave WonderCon and not let anyone down or to cancel on WonderCon, which was increasingly looking like a risky thing to attend. Its operators did a wise thing and I thank them for doing it now instead of waiting a week or two.
If it turns out that this thing takes a lot fewer human lives than the Worst Case projections, I hope we don't hear people saying the reactions to it and all these cancellations were foolish and unnecessary. I hope they say the fatalities were kept down by swift, smart action and responsible parties erring on the side of caution. And I really hope they say that it was an act of appalling negligence that we weren't better prepared for this and that we won't make that mistake again.