2020-03-30_People

38 March 30, 2020

By March 16 several cities had imposed curfews

that required residents to be home by 8 p.m., while

at the White House, President Trump and the press

corps alike were screened for fevers before gath-

ering for daily pandemic updates. The National

Institutes of Health’s Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has

emerged as the steady hand at the helm of this cri-

sis, said it’s going to take an “aggressive” hunker-

ing-down of individuals in every state to get ahead

of the virus, whose infections here have soared to

4,400 known cases since the United States’ first

confirmed case was reported Jan. 21. “People need

to understand that things will get worse before

they get better,” Fauci told ABC News on March 15.

“What we’re trying to do is make sure they don’t get

to the worst-case scenario.”

And yet, amid the hospitalizations and quaran-

tines, the panic shopping and the shutdowns, Amer-

ica showed her resolve, resilience and humanity.

Vanderbilt University junior Max Schulman, 21,

spent a week visiting friends in Barcelona before

heading home to New York on March 7. He was di-

agnosed with the virus the next day.

We knew people were getting jittery toward

the end of the trip, but we were still in public

places, and they were all still packed with people.

It wasn’t really a thought. I was feeling a little bit

off when I was in the airport. I was just so tired,

T

he early trickle of announcements

was stunning enough: On March 6

the city of Austin canceled South by

Southwest, the annual film, music

and technology festival, then, with-

in days, the NCAA March Madness

tournament was called off, the NBA

and Major League Baseball post-

poned their seasons indefinitely, and amusement

parks shuttered their gates. Colleges extended

spring break until further notice, and National

Guard troops were deployed to the nation’s first

“containment zone,” in New Rochelle, N.Y.—all

to impede the novel coronavirus, COVID -19, that

had spread to America after weeks of devastation

overseas.

By week’s end it was impossible to keep up

with cancellations as “normal” itself shut down

in America. With health officials giving the public

a crash course in epidemiological modeling—and

how a predicted spike in infections could be flat-

tened, or spread out, over time to avoid overrun-

ning the country’s health-care system—“social

distancing ” became a thing, and #FlattenThe

Curve went viral as neighbors beseeched neigh-

bors to take school, restaurant, retail and church

closures seriously and stay home. While parents

scrambled to accommodate the almost 36 mil-

lion children home from an estimated 69,000

closed public schools across all 50 states and

shoppers swarmed grocery stores for essentials,

one meme making the rounds evoked the spirit of

the Greatest Generation in World War II: “Your

grandparents were called to war. You’re being

called to sit on your couch. You can do this.” But

for many, that ignored the very real pain of lost

wages, struggling small businesses and retirees

watching their 401(k)s spiral steadily downward.

CORONAVIRUS

BY THE

NUMBERS

2 TO 14 DAYS

The time it usually

takes for infected

people to develop

symptoms

80

Percentage of

coronavirus cases

expected to be mild

12

The minimum

number of months

it will take to ready

a vaccine once it’s

proven safe

56.6 MILLION

The number of U.S.

preK-12 students,

most of whom are

no longer in school

$1 TRILLION

Amount the

coronavirus could

cost the

global economy

The Fallout

Coronavirus patient

Judie Shape (left, at

the Life Care Center

in Kirkland, Wash.)

can only wave at her

daughter through

the window, since

visitors have been

barred at the nursing

facility. Above:

Shelves at an Arizona

Target were stripped

bare of toilet paper

by panic shoppers.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: TED S WARREN/AP/SHUTTERSTOCK; CHRISTIAN PETERSEN/

GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY MAXWELL SCHULMAN; SAMUEL CORUM/GETTY IMAGES

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