Travelling by train through the mountains of China’s Shanxi Province back in 1986, I recall encountering a series of tunnels through steep, forested hillsides. You are plunged into darkness, burst into the sunshine, and then zoom back underground in rapid succession as the tracks make their dizzying way across the precipitous terrain. No sooner have you emerged into the light than the ominous maw of the next tunnel entrance looms ahead of you.
A trip like this reminds you that “light at the end of the tunnel”—something many commentators on COVID-19 now claim to be