I had a conversation with someone that went like this:

“I have wanted to visit Alaska for years and we were planning to this summer. My son planned the trip for 2 years and then surprised me with it. But then people started canceling on us. Our glacier kayak trip canceled, our Airbnb host decided not to host because of the coronavirus, etc.

And we would have to get a negative test 3 days after we got there before we could do anything.

But my son is a doctor, and he said that we could get a false positive test and then our trip would be ruined. So we didn’t go.”

Humans have an amazing ability to believe that nothing bad can happen to us. Note that there wasn’t a thought of the possibility of having a true positive test for the coronavirus, and the potential negative consequences of that, only the potential for a false positive.

This is surely a protective response, but does it always serve us well?