Pandemics create so many rapid societal changes that it's tough to keep track of everything that's happened, or to predict what may happen with any accuracy. I am trying to keep track of the things that are happening for several reasons (one of them admittedly self-serving; I have a story on the back burner about an engineered virus that rips through the world, altering people's ability to communicate with each other, and I imagine some of the things we're seeing with SARS-CoV-2 would happen in that fictional world as well... so I'm taking notes).
I think most people living through this realize they're witnessing a major historical event unfolding in real time. We understand that some day, people will study this pandemic. So if future generations ever read this rambling first-person narrative as history, here's something I want you to understand: we don't know how this is going to end. You have the benefit of hindsight, of knowing how long quarantine and self-isolation and social distancing and other viral stop-gaps had to continue, of understanding what we did to keep the millions of people suddenly out of work from being kicked out on the street to die, of being aware what antiviral treatment or series of treatments finally put the 'Rona to rest or at least in abeyance, of seeing what leadership measures needed to be taken and were not, what kind of political fallout came from all of this, how it changed society. We don't know any of those things. The future is completely opaque to us, and that's what makes this time especially wearing on the soul. We don't know how many months or years we'll have to keep our distance from fragile friends and loved ones so they won't get sick, how long we'll have to wait before it's safe to hug someone again. We don't know how the many businesses and social organizations that will inevitably fail during this pandemic will end up altering our society. We don't know which, if any, of the many experimental treatments now in the pipeline will work. We don't know who will make it out of this alive, and which people -- like my friend and KIN colleague Sarah Johnson, who died of COVID-19 on Saturday -- won't. We don't even know what insane things are slated for next month (Yellowstone eruption? coronal mass ejection? alien invasion? AAAAIIIEEE GOJIRA!?). We can't know these things any more than you can know what'll happen to you next week -- maybe less so, because I want to assume your lives are stable enough that you can plan and dream more than a week in advance. We don't have the luxury of dreaming right now; we just have to focus on not getting dead. History only seems inevitable when it's happened, not while it's happening.
In the same vein... I just want the luxury of being able to talk about ideas again, about books and movies and art and even video games. I don't want to discuss who died today, whether I need to suit up and venture out for supplies, or what I'm going to make for dinner.
The safest bet for a pandemic project like this would probably be an animated film. Voice actors could record their parts from home studios, coached remotely by a director; individual animators could probably work safely from quarantine.
Less safe but still possible: a small, artsy film made by a team of people who were already in quarantine together -- say a husband-and-wife team or a family of actors. It would probably be best to create a quality adaptation from Shakespeare, or to adapt a novella where all the action takes place in a single location, or to create a documentary about the pandemic itself.
The most dangerous and foolhardy project, and (alas) probably the most likely to happen, is a big group of film students Blair-Witching it on an ultra-low budget. YEAH DON'T DO THIS. It isn't worth the danger. As several people way smarter than me have pointed out, wealth can be rebuilt, but death is permanent.
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