On the afternoon of Monday, May 4 2020, I was in clinic well, pandemic clinic. I was sitting at my home desk talking to a patient via Zoom on my smartphone while charting into our electronic medical record on my computer. Suddenly, a flurry of emails and other alerts flashed on the upper right of my computer screen and texts began appearing on my phone.

I registered this as: unusual.

Because we are in the midst of pandemic, although I would not normally stray from the patient visit, I...