New York City is the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in the United States, though the spread is wide. I don’t know if you are hearing it where you are, but the cheering for health-care workers every night at 7 p.m. is resounding. Following the dark news during this time, it comes as a balm. The other night, I stuck my phone out the window, pressed record, and sent the results to my brother, an E.R. doctor. He found the sound as inspiring as we all did. We could all use some inspiration these days. There is so much remarkable reporting being published—for starters, please don’t miss Jonathan Blitzer’s deeply moving portrait of a beloved doorman in the Bronx. These are hard times, but we hope you find something here that lifts your spirits, too.
—David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker
 |
Cover by Chris Ware
Brave New World
● Can survivors of the coronavirus help cure the disease and rescue the economy? Lawrence Wright on the “ever-expanding group of people who have been infected, but are no longer symptomatic, if they ever were—the convalescents.”
● From our Cover Story: “Make sure it’s about how most doctors have children and families of their own.” The artist, Chris Ware, asks his fifteen-year-old daughter what the cover for The New Yorker’s Health Issue should be about.
● “ ‘This is where our life is,’ Karina said. ‘This is all we know.’ But, in some ways, Carolina said, they all ‘live in the shadows.’ ” Charles Bethea interviews undocumented immigrants about their doubled fears during the coronavirus shutdown.
● The malaria drug chloroquine has become something of an obsession among many conservative leaders, including President Trump himself, who falsely declared that it had “been approved” by the F.D.A. as a treatment for covid-19. This messaging has dangerous consequences, Paige Williams writes.
● The new American look: The case for everyone to start wearing masks and bandannas. “Covering your face is like casting a vote for the pandemic to end,” Amy Davidson Sorkin argues.
● As ad revenue shrinks, can the fragile media ecosystem survive the pandemic? Michael Luo on the news outlets that have thrived, such as the Times, and those now struggling, including BuzzFeed.
● The coronavirus is changing the very fabric of our society, Masha Gessen suggests, and we must start envisioning the future now.
Notes from the Epicenter
● Juan Sanabria was a navy veteran and a Bronx doorman. He was also a father, a grandfather, a son, and a spouse. In mid-March, he became one of New York City’s first coronavirus victims. Jonathan Blitzer tells the story of Sanabria’s life and death.
● Where should a good New Yorker be? Masha Gessen asks, do good New Yorkers leave the city, or stay home?
● The coronavirus is a ticking time bomb in New York City public housing. The Bronx-based photojournalist Michael Kamber has met “person after person” who didn’t know anything about the pandemic. “You can easily have a thousand people in a building with one working elevator.”
● The great Zoom-school experiment: Lizzie Widdicombe follows one New York City school’s transitionto remote learning.
● New York City is now a ghost town. But the battle inside hospitals is just beginning, the physician Dhruv Khullar writes.
Q. & A.
The staff writer Isaac Chotiner interviews doctors, economists, historians, and others about the pandemic.
● The contrarian coronavirus theory that informed the Trump Administration: Chotiner interviews the legal scholar Richard Epstein, who wrote that “public officials have gone overboard” and suggested that about five hundred people would die from covid-19 in the U.S.
● “I have been more scared by this than I was by 9/11.” The Manhattan emergency physician Antonio Dajerwas working at the hospital closest to the World Trade Center in 2001. Now he is treating coronavirus patients.
Dispatches
● In California, which has the worst housing crisis in the country, a group of people who call themselves the Reclaimers are taking possession of vacant homes to self-isolate amid the covid-19 outbreak, Dana Goodyear reports.
● From Boston, Clayton Dalton, a resident physician, worries about what he will do if his hospital reaches its limit. “Would the approach be first come, first served? Would we prioritize the sickest, as E.R.s often do?”
Dept. of Social Distancing
🎞️ What to watch: “I clicked, and suddenly seven hours had passed.” Rachel Syme tries to distract herself from anxiety by bingeing the Netflix show “Tiger King.” Richard Brody on Blake Edwards’s masterwork documentary about his wife, Julie Andrews. And, since Broadway theatres closed their doors, Instagram Live has been repurposed as a cabaret, abuzz with artists from Patti Smith to Andrew Lloyd Webber, Alexandra Schwartz writes.
📖 What to read: How did modern life get so lonely? The National Emergency Library, a digital collection of 1.4 million books, is now open—for free. Jill Lepore digs in. “What is a ghost but a hidden consequence made visible?” Katy Waldman reviews Emily St. John Mandel’s “The Glass Hotel.” Finally, check out George Saunders’s latest short story, “Love Letter.” He talks about politics, regret, and the story’s epistolary form in an interview with The New Yorker’s fiction editor, Deborah Treisman.
🎧 What to listen to: The Korean-American d.j. and producer Yaeji’s new mixtape is about the opposite of social distancing, Hua Hsu writes. Rather, it’s about “basking in the brilliance of your friends, sweating alongside strangers,” reminding us of a bygone life—or perhaps a glimpse into what awaits us. Plus, add Rastafari artist Jah9 to your pandemic playlist, and other recommendations from New Yorker writers.
🍳 What to eat: In her new column, Helen, Help Me, The New Yorker’s food correspondent, Helen Rosner, advises a desperate college student who previously “existed off of Trader Joe’s frozen meals” and the bread lovers who can’t find any bread left in stores. Plus: pick up the damn phone, and other thoughts on navigating the ethical minefield of ordering restaurant delivery during a pandemic.
Dept. of Distractions
Stories of reflection, hope, and ecstasy from our archives.
● Can reading make you happier? Ceridwen Dovey tries bibliotherapy.
● “The year that I stopped believing in God—2006—was also the year I first did Ecstasy, in a friend’s college apartment.” Jia Tolentino on losing religion and finding ecstasy in Houston.
● “This research shows that resilience is, ultimately, a set of skills that can be taught.” Maria Konnikova on how people learn to become resilient.
● In parting, a poem:
The most beautiful part of your body
is where it’s headed. & remember,
loneliness is still time spent
with the world.
—“Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong,” by Ocean Vuong