People say coronavirus is like prison. I can tell you: it’s not.

I live in New York City which is at the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. I wear a face mask to walk my dog every day. People pass by and our dogs sniff each other while we chat from a social distance, and more than one dog owner has told me that they feel like they are in prison. One actually said, “I feel like I’m in solitary confinement.”

I asked, “Have you ever been in solitary confinement?” She told me she hadn’t, to which I replied, “I was in solitary — and being at home is nothing like being in solitary confinement!”

These days I have all too often heard people talk about prison as if they knew what it is actually like to live behind bars. Several months ago a friend told me she was going to prison. I asked why. She said she was going to a diet camp which, to her, felt like prison. Immediately I told her that she should not call it prison. “I was in prison,” I told her, “and a diet camp is nothing like that. You’re spending $10,000 to lose ten pounds,” I pointed out. “You may have to eat less, but you have no real restrictions on your life.”

Being stuck at home is an inconvenience, but it’s not prison. It’s not incarceration. Some who complain actually went to second homes in the Hamptons, or other locations in the countryside where they can walk, sunbathe and do everything they might want outside of mingling with large groups of people.

For those who feel like they are in prison or confinement, please let me point out…