A Days of Distancing Holiday

Spatial separation has salutary effects. When the current situation ends, we should consider having an annual two-week

Flu shots administered with spatial distancing. This is much sounder than the previous year, when they asked us to stand up, move to the next chair, and sit down again, as the next person was called.

A “Days of Distancing” holiday during peak flu season, say the first two weeks of February in the Northern Hemisphere. People would stay home and avoid large gatherings. They could still go outside in the fresh air, just avoid human contact with non-household members. They could work from home if their job allowed it, just not physically contact other people except under limited circumstances and with protective equipment.

The intent would not be to celebrate (or mourn), but to effectively do a few things:

Kill-off random viruses — Flu was down in 2020.
Reduce other deaths.
Reduce traffic.
Clean the air.
Bind families together in ways that are not stressful and with a known time of exit.
Require everyone to prepare for longer term isolations in a non-panicked way.
Give many retail and service workers a holiday, which they didn’t get during the Saturnalia festivities at the end of the previous year.

I am sure we could think of other benefits without too much difficulty.