Which is worse:

• An angry crowd shouting for an instant return to cocktails at their favorite bar, followed by dinner in a nice restaurant and an evening ballgame in a bustling stadium, or

• The prescription for society by a pediatric cardiologist that all old-timers be confined to their homes, with food and other necessities brought to the edge of the front stoop, until this is over, because the aged are most likely to be infected?

As a certified duffer, I sure wouldn’t pick house arrest. In my county in Arizona – which is 8128 square miles, just about as large as New Jersey – we had 72 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of this column’s writing.  Only 27 of them were over 65.

The good doctor – no Dr. Fauci, by credentials – was not looking at data from my county, but probably from Maricopa County, home of Phoenix and its suburbs, where there were just under 2,500 cases. Even there, only 26% of them are elderly, in case he didn’t notice.

Unfortunately, the poor, the homeless and minorities account for far too many cases. We are not yet told how many of the disease’s victims are in nursing and assisted living homes. We don’t know how many are there not just because they are old – if they are – but because they are very sick or disabled.

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, is being released from federal prison and will serve out the rest of his sentence under “house arrest.” I guess that means like the pediatric cardiologist wants all of us oldies to do.

On the other hand, bumping into each other in a bar, or sitting cheek-by-jowl on a banquette at a cafe or the bleachers at a ball game seems just plain crazy. But perhaps Eric and Don, Jr., and Jared would volunteer to lead the pack into life as it used to be so the rest of us can determine if it’s safe.

For now, I’ll get up very early for oldtimers’ hour at the grocery store and join the rest of the bemasked 6 feet away from each other.