Metaphors are some of the greatest tools of human expression. They can have great emotional power and can unite us in how we conceptualize the world. But we don’t yet have the rich and transformative ways of thinking about the global pandemic that a good metaphor could provide.

As I write this, the world is in the path of a mounting pandemic. People are frightened. They should be. The novel coronavirus is dangerous. It can and does kill. But its biologically menacing character is just one part of the threat that it poses. The virus also presents us with a social threat.