A series of brief dispatches by New York Review writers documenting the coronavirus outbreak around the world

Pandemic Journal

“Moments ago, the Israeli Health Ministry released urgent new orders. Public parks are from now on forbidden. So are beaches and nature reserves—forget about museums or cafés, which have been closed for several days. Walks are to be limited to ten minutes at a time: one parent and one child only. There are to be no playdates. No congregations of more than ten people. No medical services except for emergencies. A world the size of our living room.”

Pandemic Journal: Ruth Margalit, Tel Aviv, Israel, March 18, 2020

“As I write, I’m listening on YouTube to a “virtual chorus” of Verdi’s Va Pensiero—Italy’s unofficial anthem of national unity. Its soaring music and lyrics are soothing in this bleak time of solitude and anxiety. On Day One of the lockdown here in Rome, the first thing I noticed was a totally new urban soundtrack. The nearby Lungotevere Farnesina that flanks the Tiber River, is normally a chaotic, screeching rumble of cars, buses and motorcycles. It’s now on mute.”

Pandemic Journal: Sylvia Poggioli, Rome, Italy, March 23, 2020

“Quarantine suits my father. He wipes down all the doorknobs in the apartment with Lysol. Working from a Japanese template he found online, he has cut up one of his shirts and sits at the kitchen table sewing the scraps into masks. I spent some time last semester hanging around a biophysics lab where sterilization was reflexive, every pipette tip and glove used once and then chucked into a biohazard bin to be incinerated. MIT labs are now turning off their machines, freezing their cultures, and donating protective gear and testing equipment to Mass General.”

Pandemic Journal: Lucy Jakub, Northampton, Massachusetts, March 24, 2020

Pandemic Journal: Alma Guillermoprieto, Bogotá, Colombia, March 24, 2020

“In early March, at a faculty meeting, the coronavirus was third on my list of agenda items, after facilities improvements and fundraising progress. I mentioned a colleague’s suggestion that Wesleyan, where I am president, should cancel the upcoming Spring Break so as to finish the semester early. The room erupted in laughter, and I joined in. Students have their theses, professors their research—ridiculous to contemplate disrupting everyone’s plans.”

Pandemic Journal: Michael S. Roth, Middletown, Connecticut, March 24, 2020

“Along the boardwalk there are people walking, jogging, walking their dogs, singly or in couples. They are sensibly spaced, intentionally or not. I keep my own distance: all of them are potential carriers. It feels new, this very old way of looking at the world and fearing the unseen, suspecting dybbuks and devils inside people, lurking on door handles, hovering in the air.”

Pandemic Journal: Adam Foulds, Toronto, Canada, March 27, 2020

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Pandemic Journal: Ruth Margalit, Tel Aviv, Israel, March 18, 2020

The New York Review of Books