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On March 14, six days before New York governor Andrew Cuomo implemented a shelter-in-place order for the state, effectively shutting down all nonessential services, Reagan Reed was notified that 50 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings had been canceled across New York City’s metropolitan area. As executive director of the Inter-Group Association of AA of New York (NYIG), an umbrella organization for the area’s 6,000 AA chapters across the five boroughs and surrounding counties, it was her job to update the website’s event page.

Two reality TV shows remind us why physical connection matters.

In 1918, the city of Philadelphia threw a parade that killed thousands of people. Ignoring warnings of influenza among soldiers preparing for World War I, the march to support the war effort drew 200,000 people who crammed together to watch the procession. Three days later, every bed in Philadelphia’s 31 hospitals was filled with sick and dying patients, infected by the Spanish flu.

When it came time to pass the peace at Pathway Baptist Church, senior pastor Mike Donald didn’t hesitate.

“Everybody, wave to the right,” Donald said.

In response, the hundreds of people at the Calvert Drive In Theatre in Calvert City, Kentucky, turned to their right and waved to the people sitting in the cars next to them.