Today is day 50 of my home quarantine. It is April 23, 2020.

The Coronavirus (or more technically COVID-19, CO for corona, VI for Virus and D for disease and 19 because of an early iteration’s nomenclature—2019 novel coronavirus) is an upper respiratory tract illness that has changed the world as we know it. We have begun ticking off the number of days in isolation from friends, family, and coworkers as a testament to who’s been at it the longest and to remember how much longer we’ll be at it until the curve is flattened and it’s back to business as usual.

To avoid contracting the virus, we have been advised by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to remain 6 feet apart from other people. This is called social distancing, a new term introduced into our vocabulary and, some say, our new normal.

Though I am not a plastic surgeon like many of you reading this, I represent the “other half” with whom you may be sheltering in place (assuming you’re not married to an essential worker). Until recently, the supply chain, and how all those glorious Amazon Prime boxes get to my house, was not something I gave any thought to. Supply-chain problems were not on the nightly news. Some of you were early adopters and others are still catching up. But what we know is that all our lives have received an unsolicited hard reboot.

We’re all feeling the enormity of the situation from learning to work from home (with spouses and children we now home school in tow), to avoiding physical contact at all costs, to finding food and other essentials we took for granted in the past, and to learning how to craft our own masks, since the N-95 masks (3M, St. Paul, MN) are all back-ordered or being used by medical professionals and essential workers.

But there is a silver lining. New opportunities for innovation are happening all around us every day. New relationships are being formed. Old ones are being renewed. Communities are showing gratitude, every night, to the essential healthcare workers risking their own lives on the front lines. Whether it’s singing or bells ringing, clapping, or pots banging, at 7:00 pm Eastern every night, we let them know we appreciate their sacrifice. The Aesthetic Society has asked those of us who are staff: what can we do to help our members? They quickly began to triage and innovate to serve members immediately.

To read the full article: bit.ly/3qK4Vpw

doi.org/10.1093/asjof/ojaa018