Psych Bytes

It's the day after our county issued a "Stay at Home" mandate. I'm running along a greenway on a warm March morning when I hear an alarm and a pre-recorded voice blaring near the playground at Freedom Park. The voice is instructing people to leave the playground as it has basically been deemed unsafe by health and safety, in light of the pandemic. How apocalyptic: not dangerous because of faulty, recalled, or broken equipment but because the virus can survive for up to 72 hours on hard shiny surfaces (which you would think would be the antithesis for sustaining life; although viruses are debatably living organisms…). At the tennis courts, I turn around and run back, this time closer to the playground, to catch a glimpse of what is really going on here. The siren and announcement are no longer sounding, but there are police vehicles in the parking lot, and the monkey bars, slides, and swings — which most mornings would be swarming with young healthy bodies — are completely empty. Although I am