So this is what it feels like to live during wartime?

Probably not since the Second World War has anything upended our daily lives so completely, in ways we never could have imagined, the way COVID-19 has.

Not to compare what we are going through to the experience of people who lived through the Great War — as bad as it has been, they suffered a whole different level of fear and anxiety and made sacrifices we face seem puny by comparison.

For us, face masks are in, handshakes are out. Online shopping is in, in-person shopping is out, at least the way we had always known it.

Tourism — that most basic need to see the world — is definitely out.

And we’re inside, nearly all the time it feels like. The deadly coronavirus has invaded every little corner of our lives and sometimes, our bodies. Death and suffering; thousands of people put out of work; industries devastated; schools shuttered until who knows when; borders closed.

And all this since late December, when the new virus first emerged. Five months, that’s all.

Over the next few weeks, reporters here at Niagara’s daily newspapers will be looking at how we all will emerge from this into some sort of ‘new normal’ (are you tired of hearing that phrase yet?)

We’ll be talking with educators, elected officials, businesspeople and everyone else to get a sense of what this ‘new normal’ really is.

Like post-war, life post-pandemic might never be the same.

If it’s inconvenient to keep two metres between yourself and other people when you’re shopping, how are you going to like social distancing at a concert or hockey game?

If you believe class sizes at school are already too large, how will it look when kids are forced to maintain a safe distance? Will that require more, smaller classrooms and more teachers?

There seems to be universal agreement that we need to find a better, safer way to care for our elderly citizens in nursing homes and long-term care centres.

That will be expensive. Are you prepared to pay the price, through higher fees and more taxes?

Or what would you be willing to give up so taxes don’t go up?

Indoor shopping malls are already yesterday’s trend. Businesses are being allowed to reopen now — but not those situated in indoor malls, which remain largely closed.

Will this spell the end of those malls?

Any place where crowds congregate, from churches to arenas, cruise ships, even Table Rock at the top of the Horseshoe Falls — how can any of them function the way we’ve always known them to?

Even our streets and sidewalks will have to be used with more safe space between pedestrians — and that will require a whole new level of awareness because old habits have the potential to kill.

The possibilities for reshaping the world as we thought we knew it are numerous. And that’s just the physical world around us.

Is all that enough to get you out of your home and into a restaurant or a sports arena, even if they’ve been renovated to allow social distancing?

It’s not only physical barriers that have to be overcome, there are psychological ones as well.

We are all dealing with a new playbook being written on the fly with revisions and updates that seem nonstop.

Hopefully through the reporting in our series, though, we can at least present a clearer picture of where we appear to be headed and how we might get there.