A few days ago 60 Minutes displayed a map of flights outbound from Wuhan, China. A Canadian company called BlueDot tracked direct flights and number of travelers to project the spread of COVID-19 three months ago. The sophistication of the real-time display is amazing. But the relationship of international flight and viruses is almost a hundred years old.

At first I was discouraged to see predictions in the media that social distancing will be around for weeks or until the end of the summer or even for six months or longer. But a little internet surfing showed that “social distancing” doesn’t mean “lockdown” and although the definition of both terms is fluid, they are not the same thing.

This morning we had too many bananas, so I took a few over to my neighbor and in return she gave me a tip for this column. When you put a headline in the Notable Headlines section, she said, please put a link. In case I want to read it. The headline that caught her eye was this: “Why going without physical touch is so hard,”

Today there’s no end to the communication options: text, phone, email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Facetime, and increasingly these days, Google Messenger, Hangouts, and Zoom. As Lydia Denworth says in Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond, “there is no one way to do friendship.”

Maybe you’re ahead of me on this one, but I just found out that you can buy groceries at Panera’s. And they’re not alone. A quick search of “restaurants selling groceries” reveals that this coronavirus innovation is nationwide. This is one of the pandemic changes that I hope lasts. It helps keep produce in the restaurant supply chain and

We are halfway into our second month of lockdown and the news today is full of articles on what people are doing at home: baking, Zooming, reading, refinishing, watching movies. Not to mention working and doing homework. So I thought I’d send out a survey to see what my family is up to. Whatever we do, we do a lot of it:

Yesterday I quoted a headline about Cal State Fullerton from the L.A.Times: “Cal State Fullerton cancels in-person fall classes, will go online. Will others follow?” This turned out not to be true. Actually, I had my doubts when I saw no reference to it on the CSF website last evening.

Planning a trip? Probably not. But just in case, I checked the State Department travel advisories. For the first time in my life they have a level 4 advisory not to travel ANYWHERE. Instead the State Department has been busy bringing Americans home: 64,178 Americans from over fifty countries.