The second genome also has three new differences, or mutations, in three more places. Thanks to the data posted openly online, I could see them with my own eyes. Coronaviruses mutate about every two weeks on average, so three mutations times two weeks per mutation equals six weeks of time between the first “grandparent” sequence and the second “grandchild” sequence. That amount of time fits with the time between samples, and implies that a “couple hundred” people were infected without knowing it.

It was one thing to read it in the paper, and quite another to reconstruct it on my own. In the midst of uncertainty, the letters on the screen defined a logical set of conclusions that said that the virus has been infecting people and mutating for at least a few weeks.

The bad news was that it was spreading without us knowing it. But the good news was that we were starting to decode how fast and how much it had spread. We had a set of footprints we could follow to catch this killer.

In an uncertain world that didn’t make sense, this path of reasoning was a lifeline. So I did what any teacher would do: I passed it on by incorporating it into my class that afternoon (recorded on YouTube).

I changed my lesson because the anxiety on campus was palpable. The students heard about each of these events before I did, and I had even seen some wearing masks. When I showed the students this chain of reasoning, I don’t know if you can hear it in the video, but I felt this in the room: every eye was on me (for once), shoulders visibly relaxed, and hands shot up for questions.

This knowledge doesn’t eradicate a single virus or cure a single physical symptom. But it dispels the mental fog of misinformation and worry, so that we see this virus for what it is: a nasty, horrible virus, possibly ten times worse than the seasonal flu, but one with atoms and lipids and protein and RNA that can be read like a book so that we can see where it has been. We are decoding its secret history.

Students today grow up in a confusing, uncertain, at times vicious world. I had worried that my scientific explanation might give them more worries, because it reveals that this virus is indeed contagious and deadly. But every small bit of it that we understand, like the RNA sequence, the mutation rate, and the population size, that gives hope. This is science as therapy, and science as grace.

Tuesday, March 3: “State coronavirus death toll up to 6”

More people died on Monday, possibly even as I was teaching. On Tuesday, I checked the news every hour. It seems like every time I checked there was another case, or worse, another fatality.

All day Tuesday I graded papers and advised students, as the virus continued to spread. Every doorknob hid a potential contagion. My wife texted me and my first thought was that one of the kids was sick. But the news was good: she had found a promising recipe for homemade hand sanitizer. I intermittently waited, worked, and sometimes trusted.

Even though it was a slow day, I was tired at the end of it. I realized I had been making two sets of plans: one for if school continued and one for if it closed. Planning everything twice takes twice as much work. It’s a kind of double life that everyone has to live when you don’t know if you’ll be sick tomorrow, but it’s similar to if you don’t know if it will snow tomorrow, or if there will be an earthquake or a financial disaster. Each of us could be gone tomorrow. You have to prepare, but also trust.

Wednesday, March 4: “ ‘We’ve been missing a lot of cases’: Faulty tests, red tape allowed coronavirus to spread undetected in state”

The next day, the drumbeat of cases continued. I told my first-year science writing class about the genome data and answered questions. I heard good news directly from students with family in Asia: cases were finally falling. I heard stories of quarantined family members with cabin fever, and advised caution and a little more patience until this all played out. I felt hope, although tempered with the realization that if it took a month in China, it could take a month in Washington—and then the infection could recur later. How long?

Thursday, March 5: “China tried a lockdown; should Seattle? Experts caution that Beijing’s extreme quarantine measures could cause more harm than good here”

Today, as I write this, it is the seventh day after the coronavirus appeared in my county. Today was my last lab period of the quarter, so we have done the experimental work we need to do, and I’ve made contingency plans for my students to turn in their reports online. We are ready for either possibility now.

In my science writing class, the students are working on an art chemistry project that I accelerated so they could complete it this week. My two sets of plans are in place and each day I’ll decide which one I should use.

We just got the email that all activities at church have been cancelled for at least a week. Hopefully these measures will slow the spread of the disease enough that our overtaxed medical system can respond to the sick.

The church has an ancient calling to tend the sick. It seems odd that right now that care is being exercised by opting not to meet in large groups so as not to spread it to the most vulnerable (those 60 years and older). I can’t change this, so I watch and wait.

Where two or three are gathered, Jesus said he’d be among them, and in my house we have six, so that’ll work. We’ll consider this a little outpost of the Kingdom of God until we can meet again and sing together.

Right now I don’t know if we have a week or a month of isolation ahead, and I don’t know if someone I love will get sick. That’s a real and scary possibility. The first Washington case was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and that patient had two weeks of intense illness, and he’s ten years younger than me.

I don’t know if that man’s case is typical or not. All I know is that God made a world with rules. The contagion follows rules and hides where we can’t see it. But by following these rules, we can take the virus apart, isolate its genes, find out where it’s been, and eventually predict where it’s going. Wherever that is, we know that God stands with us, today, to the end of the world, and beyond. So be it.