“How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world/That has such people in’t!” — "The Tempest," act 5, scene 1

I was reluctant to write about the coronavirus pandemic. Others can write about it better than I can. My original idea was to suggest books for those forced to stay inside, which may be all of us. If you ever wanted to read Dante’s "The Divine Comedy," Thomas Pynchon’s "Gravity’s Rainbow" or James Joyce’s "Ulysses," now is your chance. One could also read the Bible from end to end or the collected works of William Shakespeare.

One play that seems particularly relevant is not a Shakespeare but George Bernard Shaw’s play, "The Doctor’s Dilemma," which premiered in 1906. Shaw was against vaccination, which his play considers, but if Shaw’s attack on vaccination is terribly out of date, his play raises a current concern. The plot is simple.

Sir Colenso Ridgeon has developed a cure for tuberculosis, but he has a limited staff and resources, and can only treat 10 patients at a time. The dilemma is intensified when the doctor falls in love with Jennifer, the wife of a gifted but amoral artist named Dubedat. Dr. Ridgeon decides to save a kindly impoverished medical student and let the bigamist if brilliant artist perish. This action costs him the love of Jennifer.

On CBS Sunday Morning, Ted Koppel discussed a similar issue of the coronavirus pandemic and limited supplies, including ventilators, since the virus attacks the lungs.

"We're trying to save the greatest number of lives possible," said Dr. Tia Powell, director of bioethics at Montefiore Medical Center in New York. "And the basic goal is to divide people into three large categories: One, the lucky group — you have a very mild case, you might feel miserable, but you're not in danger. The group that you're looking for in a hospital is the group that is very sick and that actually may die without critical care resources, but if we can get them those resources they have a good chance of pulling through. And then the third group is the most unlucky. That's people with a terrible prognosis, people for whom even with critical care resources the chance of surviving is terrible."

Koppel said, "I'm sure not a term that you will happily use, but we're talking about rationing."

"It's a form of rationing, yeah," said Dr. Powell. "And I agree, everybody tried to avoid that word, but I would actually like people to understand what may be coming."

David Williams, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, said, "What we fear will happen, what is most likely to happen, is that persons who are poor, persons who are racial or ethnic minorities, are less likely to get ventilators than those who are wealthy and well-connected” (CBS This Morning).

I certainly hope David Williams is not right regarding racial minorities. I suspect I would be denied a ventilator being an older patient and one with asthma, an underlying condition. One could argue that’s just too bad, and there are others more deserving.

The rationing of life saving medical devices, however, could become a moral issue with terrible impact for doctors and patients. As others have illustrated, we will also face a devastating economic blow. To some, our world may seem to be ending.

And yet.

I still remember just after 9/11 when my car broke down and while lifting the hood, a group of people rushed out of a nearby restaurant to give assistance. I think we will see similar acts of kindness in the days to come. Eventually, there will be a vaccine for the coronavirus, and we will see what Shakespeare called a “brave new world.”

Michael Corrigan of Pocatello is a San Francisco native and a retired Idaho State University English and speech communication instructor. He studied screenwriting at the American Film Institute and has authored seven books, many about the Irish American experience.