One of the small consequences of the pandemic is that it is turning “How are you?” into a question again. In ordinary times, people don’t ask “How are you?” because they want a real answer; they ask it because asking is what you do. This question is usually a simple, polite greeting.

"How are you?"

The pandemic has illustrated the deep interconnections among people, how profoundly interdependent we are, and how we need one another. But our languages lag. The pleasantries we usually use are not well equipped to account for our tragedies.

Unsuitable language

Pleasantries are optimistic things; they insist on seeing the bright side of any situation. A pandemic, however, is not a moment of “I’m fine, thanks.” It is not a moment for the superficially polite. It is a moment to be caring, by discarding some of the traditional politeness. Find linguistic hacks, to emphasize that you don’t want to know how someone is doing in a typical way, but instead in a way that is tailored to this dreadful moment: How are you … considering? How are you doing … with all this?

The bias towards optimism

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<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2020/03/tedious-cooking-best-distraction-pandemic/608188/">Read: The best kind of food to cook during a pandemic</a> But these, of course, are not ordinary times. People are dying of a new and not fully understood illness. Many of those who are fortunate enough to be healthy are sequestered in their home, for a period that might be days or weeks but might also be months. And many, at the same time, are anxious and bored and underemployed and overemployed and stir-crazy and uncertain and lonely and terrified. Our context, at the moment, is crisis. And that fact alone brings a new meaning-and a new weight-to even the most banal of our pleasantries. I mention Sagal's tweet because it neatly encapsulates what I've seen in my own life, over the past weeks: When people ask "How are you?" these days, they tend to mean it literally-and tend to receive honest answers. One very small consequence of COVID-19 is that it is turning "How are you?" into a question again.
In an apocalypse, the movies suggest, politeness is one of the first things to go. Manners, teetering as they do at the tippy-top of <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html">Maslow's hierarchy</a>, finally topple. The thin veneer of civilization peels and cracks, the self-interest takes over, and Darwinism reasserts its dull demands. The COVID-19 pandemic is not yet apocalyptic in the U.S. But the crisis, so far, has nevertheless been something of a rebuke to Hollywood: The pandemic has brought out <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html">human selfishness</a>, yes, but it has also brought out human kindness. It has illustrated the deep interconnections among people-how profoundly interdependent we are, and how thoroughly we need one another. Humans are social animals, the biologists and psychologists are always saying. A pandemic is, on top of everything else, a sobering reminder of that.
But our language lags. American pleasantries, pretty much by definition, are pleasant. They are not well equipped to account for our tragedies. They are very good at softening the world's rough edges. They are very good at finding small sites of communion, and at establishing minor vectors of empathy ("Such beautiful weather we're having!"; "Did you watch the Nats last night?"). They are very good at narrowing the world. But they are distinctly less good at expanding it. When I ask someone "How are you?" these days, what I really mean is this: "How are you, health-wise? How are you, otherwise? How is your family? How are you coping? Are you coping? Have you been washing your hands? Do you have enough beans? Are you bored? Are you scared? Me, too."
What I end up doing, though, is a version of what Katey Sagal did, when she asked her followers not just "How are you?" but instead the longer form of the query: "How are you doing?" I try to find ways-linguistic hacks, really-to emphasize that I don't mean the inquiry in the typical, perfunctory way, but instead in a way that is calibrated to this terrible moment: No, really, how are you? I find myself doing the same thing a lot of people have been doing with me: modifying the standard question to make clear that it really is a question. How are you ... considering? How are you doing ... with all this? 
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Read: The best kind of food to cook during a pandemic But these, of course, are not ordinary times. People are dying of a new and not fully understood illness. Many of those who are fortunate enough to be healthy are sequestered in their home, for a period that might be days or weeks but might also be months.

The Utter Weirdness of Small Talk in a Pandemic

"How are you?"

Unsuitable language

The bias towards optimism

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