When my children were growing up, I noticed that, no matter what else I was doing, a small part of my brain was constantly occupied with a single question:  Like a constant radio signal, or background hum, sporadically heard but always there.  “Is it safe enough?”

Not simply “Is it safe?” because of course there was (is) no such thing. Just “is it safe enough?” Safe enough to make the chances of catastrophe acceptable in a rational sort of way. And of course the questions changed as the kids grew: Was it “safe enough” to let her put that toy in her mouth? Safe enough to not have a plastic plug on every electrical outlet in the house? Safe enough to let her walk 10 feet ahead of me on the sidewalk? To cross the street without holding hands? To let him take the car? Stay out past midnight? It never totally went away, but after they had finished college and had been living on their own a few years, the little radio-signal in the back of my brain seemed to have gone nearly silent.

Well, it’s back.

Is it safe enough to visit a friend? Safe enough to enter a grocery without a mask and plastic gloves? Safe enough to bring those groceries into the house? To only wipe down the table-tops and cell phones with disinfectant once a day? To let that repair person into the house? To open the mail? To take a walk? To breathe outside?

Just as with new parents, there is no absolute safety: Nothing can guarantee random disaster won’t strike, that the seemingly inexorable viral tide won’t find its way to us under the door, through the crack in the window, or via the casual breath of a passerby.  All we can do is take reasonable precautions – but what is reasonable? Is it paranoid foolishness to wash fruit with soap, wear an N95 mask to mail a letter, leave mail sitting untouched for 72 hours? There are no hard answers. We just play the odds, which change daily.