SEATTLE — There is a strange in-betweenness to life in the nation’s coronavirus capital. Classes continue on the University of Washington’s campus, some half-empty, others completely full. I have been teaching here 13 years, and faculty members have been getting detailed, palpably anxious instructions from administrators on how to teach online and on hand-washing and social distance, and reminders that no one on our 46,000-student campus has tested positive for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19. For now.

The local schools my children attend were deep-cleaned last weekend, and they were still open on Thursday. Rumors fly through middle-schoolers’ text strings, neighborhood message boards, conversations in the grocery line. We’re all at the store daily, stocking up on canned goods and paper towels, awaiting news of school closings and home quarantines. Costco is overrun. A friend told me about a beleaguered Costco employee who had to stand in a corner of the store yelling, “No toilet paper!” over and over, and redirecting shoppers from the empty pallets.

Of course, the dangers here are much greater than running out of toilet paper. Sixty-nine people have already been found to have the novel coronavirus in the Seattle area. Ten have died, most of them residents of one suburban nursing facility. The county government bought a motel to quarantine infected patients. It is likely to get worse: Analysis by scientists who studied the local cases indicates that the virus may well have been present in the area for up to six weeks. Like the seasonal flu, the coronavirus is most dangerous to the old and medically vulnerable, but the only way to halt its spread is to change nearly everyone’s behavior.

The tech companies that dominate this region’s economy have been the most aggressive in making changes. Microsoft and Amazon moved quickly to cancel nonessential travel. Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook have recommended that employees in the area work from home if they can until the end of March. Yet the Emerald City Comic Con, which drew nearly 100,000 people last year to downtown, is still on. Flights continue at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Passengers are screened for the virus as they arrive from China, but Seattleites are not necessarily screened as we depart.