In the Time of COVID-19, You Are Schrodinger’s Typhoid Mary

Before I begin, let me unpack that title just a bit.

If you are reading this within about a generation of my having written it, chances are you definitely know what COVID-19 is, so I will skip over that explanation.

Schrodinger’s Cat, however, is a thought experiment that involves one Austrian physicist by the name of Erwin Schrodinger, and one cat who swears he never signed the release to authorize this experiment. The experiment starts by placing the cat in a box. So far so good. Cats love boxes.

But that’s where things take a turn for the worse, because in addition to the cat, you also put in a canister of poison gas! Oh no! The poison gas is triggered by the status of a radioactive material, and something something quantum mechanics, it means that the cat is simultaneously dead and alive, until we open the box and observe the cat. Whatever we see is the final status of the cat.

Well, at least for the next ten years or so.

Typhoid Mary, on the other hand, was a very practical experiment. Mary Mallon’s story is tragic for everyone involved. She’s the first documented case of a carrier of a disease infecting others without displaying symptoms. And, well, because she was the first documented case, a lot of people at the time didn’t think it was possible. Including Mary Mallon, herself.

How can you be sick, if you’re not sick?

She spent her life either working in the households of families she would eventually unwittingly kill, or in a hospital or quarantine somewhere, insisting that the world had gone mad and that she had done nothing wrong.

So here’s the thing. Until you show symptoms or get tested (and they’re not testing everyone who asks for it as of this writing), you don’t know if you’ve got COVID-19 or not. Maybe you’ll never express symptoms. Maybe your case will be mild. Maybe you’ll never get the disease.

But right now, as the crisis is ramping up and new cases are being discovered in all 50 states, there’s no way to know for sure. And there are a lot people out there saying “how can I be sick if I’m not sick?” And who knows what new bits of medical science are being discovered even today that people like you and me won’t really be willing to believe at first. Maybe this virus teaches us something new and horrifying, just like Mary Mallon did.

So, until someone has this under control, until tomorrow sees fewer new cases than yesterday, until a vaccine is developed, until someone trustworthy gives us the “all clear” signal, pretend you are Typhoid Mary, and pretend that you’re a version of her who believes she is infected.

And treat every single person you encounter as though you might accidentally kill them with a touch.