We are caught between politicians who want to open up the economy and the schools, and public health professionals, most of whom advise against it. This raises the question: who has –
or should have – more control? Legally, the politicians have the power to force both closures and re-openings during a pandemic, but public health professionals exert another type of control through their command of data. And yet, despite this illusion of control, the pandemic has reminded us that the more control we try to exert over nature, the more nature reminds us
of how little control we really have.