Look, we all agree on some kinds of curbs on guns. Nobody believes that people should be able to drive a tank down Main Street, or have an anti-aircraft gun in the backyard. I’ve been to parts of northern Yemen where one could actually buy a tank or an

I attended a N.R.A. gun safety class (which came with a one-year membership to the N.R.A., making me an N.R.A. alum who despises what that organization has become). These classes can be very useful, and audits found that more than 80 percent cover such matters as checking the gun to see if it’s loaded, keeping one’s finger off the trigger until ready to fire and being certain of the target.

Yet more Americans have died from gun violence, including suicides, since 1970 (about 1.4 million) than in all the wars in American history going back to the Revolutionary War (about 1.3 million). And it’s not just gang-members: In a typical year, more pre-schoolers are shot dead in America (about 75) than police officers are.

This is the blunt, damning truth: The latest shooting was 100 percent predictable.

Some of you will protest, as President Trump and others have, that the immediate aftermath of a shooting is too soon to talk about guns, or that it is disrespectful to the dead to use such a tragedy to score political points.

and so is our polarized political system and the power of the gun lobby. It’s unclear how effective some of my suggestions will be, and in any case this will be a long, uncertain, uphill process.

Yes, making America safer will be hard: There are no perfect solutions. The Second Amendment

But automobiles are a reminder that we can chip away at a large problem through a public health approach: Just as auto safety improvements have left us far better off, it seems plausible to some gun policy experts that a sensible, politically feasible set of public health steps could over time reduce firearm deaths in America by one-third — or more than 10,000 lives saved each year.

So let’s not just shed tears for the dead, give somber speeches and lower flags. Let’s get started and save lives.

he first step is to understand the scale of the challenge America faces: The U.S. has more than 300 million guns — roughly one for every citizen — and stands out as well for its gun death rates. At the other extreme, Japan has less than one gun per 100 people, and typically fewer than 10 gun deaths a year in the entire country.

America has been shaken by new mass shootings, in Georgia and Colorado, with at least 18 people killed. This essay originally ran in 2017, after a shooter killed 26 people in a Texas church, but the issue is still tragically relevant — and will remain so until America tightens its gun safety policies.

Delaying the basketball season is the right choice. After a folly-filled football season, university and college administrators can show real leadership by putting the safety of their players and their communities first.

Students shouldn’t be asked to choose between the basketball court and their health, let alone that of the communities they return to during school breaks.

College basketball, by comparison, requires far more travel than football and is a high contact sport, also with no masks. To muddle through a basketball season, the N.C.A.A. is advising players and staff to get three coronavirus tests per week, a luxury unavailable to most students and one that takes tests away from those who might need them more urgently.

(President Trump also tried to apply pressure to restart Big Ten football, which runs through several swing states.)

Rick Pitino called on Twitter for the March Madness tournament to be pushed back to May.

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ollege basketball is the first major indoor sport to attempt a season without the restrictive player bubbles successfully employed by professional basketball and hockey leagues. These so-called student-athletes are being treated like essential workers, but without the benefit of pay or the opportunity to share in the profits that line the pockets of administrators, coaches and television executives.

University of Connecticut’s, which preemptively canceled its entire 12-game season. Despite thousands of athletes being sickened by the coronavirus, the conferences forged ahead, including even the Big Ten and Pac-12, which in the summer prudently chose to suspend their seasons but reversed course. Many college football stadiums allowed in thousands of spectators, who displayed varying adherence to mask protocols, though college basketball appears unlikely to allow fans into its arenas.

What they are showing students now by example is that some sports — the moneymaking kind — are more important than public health.

Ignoring health officials who have deemed the annual playoff matchup too dangerous to be held with any fans in attendance on New Year’s Day in Pasadena, Calif., amid a massive spike in Covid-19 cases, it was simply moved to Texas, where local officials are willing to let some 16,000 fans attend. It’s the worst kind of forum shopping.

Our next time in a restaurant won’t be isolated in a back room worrying about getting infected. Our first time in a restaurant will be sharing and laughing and drinking with a big group of friends, when my illness — and the pandemic — will be nothing but a distant memory. We’re not there yet.

He tried to hug me.

sick before the pandemic, that my quarantine had been longer than most. He’d had Covid twice — or that’s what he said.

surrounded by strangers without thinking about getting a deadly disease.

the smell felt so weird and satisfying. I hadn’t had those tacos in a year, and there they were, sitting on my countertop, street tacos — and their salsas — delivered right to my pandemic kitchen.

Hand sanitizer use is mandatory,

Most weekdays I make breakfast, lunch and dinner: enormous pots of Bolognese con i piselli, jars of which I send to friends.

My dreams of an endless Sunday lunch with a large group of friends having pisco chilcanos in my favorite Peruvian restaurant were postponed

I was in rehearsal for the pandemic year.

I fell ill.

“researching,” which usually means eating and drinking in restaurants, bars, stands and everything in between.

We had late-night tacos from our favorite street taco stand,

But Corsi said he is still not going out for a meal in one of the many new outdoor dining creations — “even though I know they’ve got a much lower risk” of spreading COVID-19 than most indoor alternatives.

cleaned

“If they have heaters, then you’re going to actually have pretty good ventilation,” Corsi said. “The air will rise up when it’s heated, and then cool air will come in.”

Dining that is truly outdoors, with no temporary shelter at all, is much safer because there are “higher air speeds, more dispersion and more mixing than indoors,” Corsi said, which means respiratory droplets harboring the virus don’t accumulate and are less concentrated when people are close to one another.

some outdoor dining structures that are enclosed and have lots of tables near each other end up being more dangerous than being indoors, because the ventilation is worse.

“There’s a wide spectrum,” Corsi said. “The safest that we’re talking about is no walls — a roof. And then the worst is fully enclosed — which is essentially an indoor tent — especially if it doesn’t have really good ventilation and good physical distancing.”

“We’re all getting crushed by this emotionally.”

industrial hot air cannon after each party of diners leaves the igloo and before the next set enters

“You’re completely enclosed in your own space with somebody in your own household. These domes protect you from all the people walking by on the sidewalk

two people are allowed in an igloo

Tim Baker, who owns the Italian restaurant San Fermo in Seattle, had to order his igloos from Lithuania and assemble them with the help of his son.

Igloos, domes, tents: Just how safe are they?

Guests could still catch the virus from a dining companion as they sit near each other, without masks, for a prolonged period. But Canlis said there is no easy way to determine whether every member of a dining group is from the same household.

keep fine dining alive during the pandemic and a typically long and wet Seattle winter

“The hospitality out here is exactly the same as it is in there,” Canlis said, gesturing to his restaurant, which overlooks Lake Union. “But that looks really different, so try to invite them into the ‘yurtiness’ of what we are doing.”

Those who can serve customers outdoors, on patios or sidewalks, are coming up with creative adaptations that can make dining possible in the frigid depths of winter.

Some halted indoor dining altogether, including Michigan and Illinois.

raft of restrictions on indoor dining, given the high risk of spreading the virus in these crowded settings.

completely closed or not open for business in any capacity.

outdoor dining season

looking at losses of $235 billion in 2020

Yurts, greenhouses, igloos, tents and all kinds of partly open outdoor structures