22 new york | march 16–29, 2020In deference to New York’s state of emergency,
they would use only disposable cups for now.
Fewer shared surfaces to risk touching, maybe?
The rationale was a little unclear to me, but I
deferred to their authority. The place was
packed. I asked the barista if more people than
usual seemed to be working there—way more,
she said. I suspected no one present would
claim their choice was logical, that an office was
a risk where a coffee shop was not. Instead, we
seemed to be lingering in familiar habits,
assuming that “working from home” was inter-
changeable with “working from a coffee shop,”
the way it was when “working from home”
meant avoiding other people’s distractions and
not avoiding other people’s air. I asked about
the cup thing, and the barista wasn’t sure. “I’m
happy to be extra cautious,” she said. “Because
I can’t do my job from home.”
Wednesday morning at 8:33, I got a call from
my mom, a family-practice doctor in California.
It was 5:33 her time, but she’d been up since
three. “It’s making it hard to sleep at night,” she
said. Work was crazy, there weren’t enough
tests, and she’d been trying to talk my aunt in
the Midwest into canceling her trip to New
York. She was coming to see my cousin, who
worked at a Broadway theater. Later that day, a
spokesman announced that an usher at two
Broadway theaters had tested positive. By
Thursday, all Broadway would be closed.
The coffee shop was sparsely populated when
I walked in on Wednesday afternoon. An
inscrutable confrontation was under way. A
woman seated at her laptop addressed a woman
standing in a bike helmet, who had evidently
tried to bring a reusable cup. A few other coffee
buyers looked on. “Social distancing,” the seated
woman said, animated. “All these things are
based in science.” A barista hovered nearby, as
if readying herself to intervene. “We understand
that today you need to go somewhere else with
your cup,” she told the woman in the helmet.
“We’ll hope we’re overreacting.” A brief argu-
ment about the flu ensued. The seated woman
declared that she worked in public health; the
woman in the bicycle helmet took her cup and
left. There was a brief round of applause, in
which the seated woman participated.
I was glad to see a voice of science prevail. But
I still wasn’t sure I understood the cup rule, or
how—when it came to social distance—hand-
ing a barista your travel mug was worse than
taking your laptop to a coffee shop. Authority
was waiting around for anyone who claimed it.
And in a context where Donald Trump kept
saying to worry less, it hardly seemed unreason-
able to think that we all should worry more.
Was going to an appointment in Manhattan
foolish or practical? A week ago, I could have
told you, but now I wasn’t sure. The woman atthe salon said business had fallen off by half. I
rode home on an L train that, at 7 p.m., still had
standing room—more than usual, but it also
wasn’t empty. No masks in the car. I tried to
read the scene for signs, and it yielded nothing.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for anymore.
Outbreak played on a TV at the sandwich place
where I stopped to pick up dinner; and from a
tweet thread on Italian doctors, I learned the
phrase “catastrophe medicine.” By the time I
arrived home, the tabs open on my phone
included “Coronavirus Patients’ Long Ventila-
tor Stays Put Strain on Hospitals,” “Superrich
Jet Off to Disaster Bunkers Amid Coronavirus
Outbreak,” and “Out of an Abundance of Cau-
tion, I Have No Clue What to Do.”
Alone in my apartment, I drifted out onto the
seas of Twitter. Even Instagram served up
corona jokes, corona advice, corona memes.
Calls for a statewide eviction moratorium. Calls
to visit Chinatown and tip. A West Village res-
taurant with hand sanitizer homemade with
rosemary and Everclear. The news had rushed
past my ability to form the right response. On
Wednesday, my therapist said that people were
mentioning 9/11—the way the city had felt then.
She said it like the comparison might be a bit
unexpected. Hearing the same thing Friday,
who could be surprised?
Friday, a friend’s father was having heart sur-
gery. She saw him Thursday and realized they
probably shouldn’t hug. My in-laws, several
hours outside the city, invited family to come
and stay—for the weekend, or whenever, if we
wanted to get away. I wanted to get away. I was
unsure about mass transit, though, and unsure
whether anybody in their 70s really needed to
be around me and my teeming urban germs.
The last time I remember thinking deliber-
ately about being just a body was three years
ago, after Trump’s inauguration—when,
jammed together on the Mall or Brooklyn
Bridge, moving and yelling with strangers
offered a sense that you were doing something,
allowing your physical presence to be usefully
subsumed. In On Immunity, Eula Biss quotes
her sister: “Our bodies aren’t independent,” she
tells Biss. “The health of our bodies always
depends on choices other people are making.”
She’s talking about inoculation and herd
immunity, the way disease brings out our fear
of other people, but our reliance on them, too.
“The point is there’s an illusion of indepen-
dence,” the sister says. Letting go of that illusion
now may mean precisely not showing up—
protecting the city from itself by staying home,
stepping back, waiting. Living in New York
without going out into New York—retreating
from the countless points of contact that drew
us here in the first place. It will be harder than
I would have thought. ■South by Southwest is canceled.
Costco bans free samples.
Delivery apps Postmates and
Instacart begin offering no-touch
“leave at the door” options.A conversation on the Lower East Side:
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re filling up your Purell from their
bottle?”
“Why not?”
“This is a day-care center!”SATURDAY, MARCH 7^
7 new confirmed cases.Governor Cuomo declares
a state of emergency.A man in his 60s at the Red Hook
Fairway, talking on his phone:
“I was on trial with a personal-injury
case in the Bronx, and that got delayed,
so I went and did a malpractice case in
Queens. [Pause.] No, the courts aren’t
doing anything different, but the
government’s a mess. There aren’t
enough tests. As soon as there are
enough tests, I’m sure the city will have
thousands of cases. [Pause.] Yeah, the
guy in Westchester. He gave it to his
rabbi, so now the synagogue is shut
down. He gave it to the guy who drove
him to the hospital. He has one kid who
goes to Yeshiva [University] and
another who goes to public school,
now those are both closed. [Pause.] No,
I don’t think you should be concerned.
Apparently kids don’t get it for some
reason. Or only young kids get it.
[Pause.] Yeah, well, she’s 8 months old,
and she had already been in and out of
the hospital with a respiratory
condition. And she’s supposed to have
surgery for an inner-ear problem.
[Longer pause.] Right. That’s the one
to worry about.”A Fort Greene farmers’- market vendor,
handing a credit card back to
a customer, but not the portable
processor, to complete the transaction:
“Yeah, I’m signing all the charges,”
he explains. “Can’t be too careful.”A conversation in Tribeca:
“I’m pretty sure I had it already.”
“Totally. We all had it.”MONDAY, MARCH 9^
20 confirmed cases.The S&P 500 plunges more than
7 percent, triggering a 15-minute halt
in trading by the NYSE.Cuomo announces the state would be
making its own line of hand sanitizer,● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
THE FIRST 13 DAYSTRANSMITTEDTRANSMITTEDREVISED
________ COPY ___ DD ___ AD ___ PD ___ EIC0620FEA_Corona_lay [Print]_36899495.indd 22 3/13/20 10:18 PM22 new york | march 16–29, 2020
In deference to New York’s state of emergency,
they would use only disposable cups fornow.
Fewer shared surfaces to risk touching,maybe?
The rationale was a little unclear to me,butI
deferred to their authority. The placewas
packed. I asked the barista if more peoplethan
usual seemed to be working there—waymore,
she said. I suspected no one presentwould
claim their choice was logical, that an officewas
a riskwherea coffeeshopwasnot.Instead,we
seemed to be lingering in familiarhabits,
assuming that “working from home” wasinter-
changeable with “working from a coffeeshop,”
thewayit waswhen“workingfromhome”
meant avoiding other people’s distractionsand
not avoiding other people’s air. I askedabout
the cup thing, and the barista wasn’tsure.“I’m
happy to be extra cautious,” she said.“Because
I can’t do my job from home.”
Wednesday morning at 8:33, I got acallfrom
my mom, a family-practice doctor in California.
It was 5:33 her time, but she’d beenupsince
three. “It’s making it hard to sleep at night,”she
said. Work was crazy, there weren’tenough
tests, and she’d been trying to talk myauntin
the Midwest into canceling her triptoNew
York. She was coming to see my cousin,who
worked at a Broadway theater. Later thatday, a
spokesman announced that an usherat two
Broadway theaters had tested positive.By
Thursday, all Broadway would be closed.
The coffee shop was sparsely populatedwhen
I walked in on Wednesday afternoon.An
inscrutable confrontation was underway. A
woman seated at her laptop addresseda woman
standing in a bike helmet, who hadevidently
tried to bring a reusable cup. A few othercoffee
buyers looked on. “Social distancing,” theseated
woman said, animated. “All these thingsare
based in science.” A barista hoverednearby, as
if readying herself to intervene. “We understand
that today you need to go somewhereelsewith
your cup,” she told the woman in thehelmet.
“We’ll hope we’re overreacting.” A briefargu-
ment about the flu ensued. The seatedwoman
declared that she worked in public health;the
woman in the bicycle helmet took hercupand
left. There was a brief round of applause,in
which the seated woman participated.
I was glad to see a voice of science prevail.But
I still wasn’t sure I understood the cuprule,or
how—when it came to social distance—hand-
ing a barista your travel mug was worsethan
taking your laptop to a coffee shop.Authority
was waiting around for anyone who claimedit.
And in a context where Donald Trumpkept
saying to worry less, it hardly seemed unreason-
able to think that we all should worrymore.
Was going to an appointment in Manhattan
foolish or practical? A week ago, I couldhave
told you, but now I wasn’t sure. The womanat
the salon said business had fallen off by half. I
rode home on an L train that, at 7 p.m., still had
standing room—more than usual, but it also
wasn’t empty. No masks in the car. I tried to
read the scene for signs, and it yielded nothing.
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for anymore.
Outbreak played on a TV at the sandwich place
where I stopped to pick up dinner; and from a
tweet thread on Italian doctors, I learned the
phrase“catastrophemedicine.” BythetimeI
arrived home, the tabs open on my phone
included “Coronavirus Patients’ Long Ventila-
tor Stays Put Strain on Hospitals,” “Superrich
Jet Off to Disaster Bunkers Amid Coronavirus
Outbreak,” and “Out of an Abundance of Cau-
tion, I Have No Clue What to Do.”
Alone in my apartment, I drifted outonto the
seas of Twitter. Even Instagram served up
corona jokes, corona advice, coronamemes.
Calls for a statewide eviction moratorium. Calls
to visit Chinatown and tip. A West Village res-
taurant with hand sanitizer homemade with
rosemary and Everclear. The news had rushed
past my ability to form the right response. On
Wednesday, my therapist said that people were
mentioning 9/11—the way the city had felt then.
She said it like the comparison mightbe a bit
unexpected. Hearing the same thing Friday,
who could be surprised?
Friday, a friend’s father was having heart sur-
gery. She saw him Thursday and realized they
probably shouldn’t hug. My in-laws, several
hours outside the city, invited family to come
and stay—for the weekend, or whenever, if we
wanted to get away. I wanted to get away. I was
unsure about mass transit, though, and unsure
whether anybody in their 70s really needed to
be around me and my teeming urban germs.
The last time I remember thinkingdeliber-
ately about being just a body was three years
ago, after Trump’s inauguration—when,
jammed together on the Mall or Brooklyn
Bridge, moving and yelling with strangers
offered a sense that you were doing something,
allowing your physical presence to beusefully
subsumed. In On Immunity, Eula Biss quotes
her sister: “Our bodies aren’t independent,” she
tells Biss. “The health of our bodies always
depends on choices other people are making.”
She’s talking about inoculation and herd
immunity, the way disease brings outour fear
of other people, but our reliance on them, too.
“The point is there’s an illusion of indepen-
dence,” the sister says. Letting go of that illusion
now may mean precisely not showing up—
protecting the city from itself by staying home,
stepping back, waiting. Living in New York
without going out into New York—retreating
from the countless points of contact that drew
us here in the first place. It will be harder than
I would have thought. ■THE FIRST 13 DAYS