Fully aware of the grievous toll Covid-19 has already taken, and belonging to the demographic deemed most vulnerable to a lethal case of it, I’m hardly inclined to make light of the disease. But of the belief that in ways self-evident and convoluted, to mitigate the terror of death is a provenance of virtually all human behavior, I can’t help but be amused by certain of the reactions to the virus and what they reveal about the games we play with our minds in order to alleviate existential dread.

I’m speaking of the extreme, indeed overwrought, adherence by many of us to protocols we’ve been told will shield us from infection, and which can range from, say, never leaving the house to painstakingly sanitizing one’s mail.

Being obsessively immersed in such protective measures enables us to feel that we’ve narrowed the infinite causes of death to a single and, crucially, avoidable one.

For a not insignificant percentage of the population, Covid-19 is something of a gift.