After a relatively slow and scattered response to the global pandemic known as COVID-19,

the U.S. has in the past week assumed what is essentially a wartime footing.

The primary focus is on curtailing the spread of the virus and creating capacity to treat

those who contract it.

To accomplish this, we've been encouraged all 330 million of us to keep to ourselves

as much as possible, a practice known as social distancing.

Schools and universities have been shut down, along with cultural and religious institutions,

restaurants and much more, the same for sporting events, theaters, conventions, and any other

large public gatherings.

Many office buildings have emptied out with employees ordered to work remotely.

Travel, especially on planes and trains, is being severely diminished.

All this has resulted in the biggest disruption of daily life that many of us have ever

known, and it will last for weeks, perhaps months.

Will it successfully contain the spread of COVID-19?

We'll find out, hopefully, it will at least be minimized.

If we listen to the public health people, the virologists and the epidemiologists, and

we should, because they've been dreading and studying this kind of pandemic for years,

they say the situation will get substantially worse in the US before it gets better.

And what other effects and after effects will this social distancing produce?

There will be many consequences, and certainly some unintended ones.

Would anyone be surprised, for instance, to see a baby boom starting around nine months

from now?

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