The idea that continuing with life as normal -- especially various forms of essential social contact and economic activity -- amounts to "murdering workers" when a somewhat bad respiratory virus is going around was one of the most risible bits of nonsense pushed into widespread adoption during the COVID response. Just because Doctorow may not mind extended social isolation with only his computer to keep him company, does not mean that everyone else was somehow uninformed if they weren't agitating for the same restrictions to be applied to themselves. Life is more than the pathologically assiduous avoidance of death.