Coronavirus has changed life as we know it. The sooner we accept that, the better | Jenice Armstrong

Loraine Ballard Morrill had waited a long time for this moment.

She was looking forward to marrying Gilberto Gonzalez on Friday at the Center for Architecture and Design before about 100 of their friends and relatives. Ballard Morrill selected that date because her son had recently started a new job in Denver and this was when he could join them. But as America began bracing for the impending spread of the coronavirus, the couple began rethinking their plans.

If you know Ballard Morrill and Gonzalez at all, you know they are among Philly’s most civic-minded residents. Gonzalez is an award-winning artist and activist from the Spring Garden area who has been vocal about his opposition to opening a supervised injection site in opioid-plagued Kensington. Ballard Morrill is the director of news and community affairs for iHeart Media Philadelphia, which owns Power 99 FM and WDAS-FM among other radio stations.

“So much planning had gone into pulling this together, and I was so looking forward to a beautiful wedding, but in the end, we had to look at the facts as we knew them, and the facts were telling us that hosting a social gathering in the middle of a pandemic did not make sense,” she told me via Facebook Messenger.

“I lost a lot of sleep over this as you can imagine,” Ballard Morrill added. “The good news is that once we made the decision, I felt really good about it. It was the right thing to do."

Since then, they’ve informed their guests that the nuptials will be postponed. They put the needs of their community before their own, which is not only wise but welcome, because life as we know it has been put on pause.

The White House now is advising the public not to gather in groups of 10 or more.

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf on Monday extended his shutdown order throughout the entire state, calling for all nonessential businesses to shut down for two weeks and asked for residents to “stay calm, stay safe, stay home.”

Philadelphia officials ordered all nonessential businesses to close by 5 p.m. Monday, with nonessential city services to follow. Restaurants have been asked to halt dine-in service.

Meanwhile, dozens of presumed positive cases of the coronavirus have been reported in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, with the number increasing daily.

The time has come for us to hunker down at home as much as possible to try to “flatten the curve” as far as the exponential spread of COVID-19. This past weekend, I barely went outside, except to get a little exercise at a nearby park. Saturday was a Netflix-and-chill night, as they say.

But according to social media, plenty of folks here and around the country were getting in on pre-St. Patrick’s Day festivities, ignoring pleas from public health experts to avoid public spaces and practice social distancing to limit the spread of the highly infectious virus.

I get it. Many of the bar goers who packed places like Frankford Hall in Fishtown over the weekend are young and feel invincible. Free on extended college spring break, it’s hard to stay inside. But they must. This is serious business.

Staying home isn’t an option for workers in certain jobs such as health care, law enforcement and public transit. But those who can need to adhere to the new guidelines.

As for Ballard Morrill and Gonzalez, they’re happy with their decision.

“Folks at work had pulled together and bought the champagne and wine for the wedding,” she told me. “Friends created the most beautiful altar with silk flowers last weekend. So many had contributed so generously. I didn’t want to let them down."

Experts say the pandemic may last six months or could drag into a year or longer — something Ballard Morrill and Gonzalez have taken into account.

“We’re thinking tentatively sometime in September, but we haven’t locked down a date yet,” she said. “We’d like to see how this COVID-19 situation plays out in the next couple of weeks.”

That’s wise, because life as we know it has changed.