As happened to many other Americans during the Christmas break, both my wife and I came down with COVID, marking the first time either of us contracted it. (I write this article on day 9, and we are on the mend, albeit slowly.) Both of us have been far sicker at other times in our lives, and compared to how others have suffered over these last two years, our cases appear to be fairly mild. At the same time, this is the longest I have been sick since 2014 (when I made a radical lifestyle change), and there’s something about...