Now may feel safer, but the virus, unsolved, remains a deadly threat to health and social order.

We have now entered the most dangerous phase of this pandemic.

We are all tired of physical isolation.

We are worried about an economic depression in a global economy already undermined by gross inequalities.

We fear for the future, and yearn for something normal even though our exhausted civilization no longer behaves normally.

We want this emergency to end. And many want it to end at any cost.

And that is where the dangers lie. For we now live in the domain of a novel coronavirus.

The virus is but five months old, a mere infant in the scheme of things. By most accounts its global adventures could last two years.

One of the few political leaders who understands the dangers ahead is German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a scientist by training. “Nobody likes to hear this, but it is the truth,” she said last week. “We are not living through the final phase of this crisis, we are still at its beginning. We will still have to live with this virus for a long time.”