All of us are struggling to keep up to date with the fast-moving and heartbreaking news on COVID-19: the number of deaths, the number of infections, the number of countries, the number of cities in lockdown. And, by now, we are, unfortunately, all too familiar with the experts’ worst-case predictions of what lies ahead: hundreds of thousands of deaths, numerous businesses permanently closed, enormous job losses. And we’ve quickly had to learn a vocabulary that not so long ago would have been unintelligible: “flattening the curve,” “social distancing,” and “self-isolating.”

What is so striking about life in the midst of this pandemic is the combination of normalcy and calamity. Thus, even though I’m working from home, I still get the same type of work-related emails that I received before the pandemic: a message from a colleague to review and comment on a draft letter to an arbitrator; a message from the presiding arbitrator in a case in which I’m a co-arbitrator containing a draft order for review and comment; an email exchange with a co-arbitrator about the selection of the presiding arbitrator in a new arbitration. And I’m still doing roughly the same work: advising clients by phone, working on an arbitration award, or a cross-examination outline. And I’m well aware that I’m lucky that I have this normalcy, that my day job goes on. There are so many who are not so lucky.