Pandemics are not wars

There are better metaphors to describe what’s happening right now.

In a tense moment near the climax of the 2016 sci-fi film Arrival, Louise Banks (Amy Adams) tries to explain to a military commander why it’s not just the words they teach to their alien visitors that matter, but also the framing and grammar they use to teach those words.

“Let’s say that I taught them chess instead of English,” she says. “Every conversation would be a game. Every idea expressed through opposition, victory, defeat. You see the problem? If...