This story started the second week of March, 2020 in a Boise, Idaho public library. I arrived from New York City five days before after a week as a tourist. Since that time, news of the Covid-19 virus’ entry to the USA was spreading. New York City was locked down four days after my departure and the country scrambled to define a more cohesive, panicked response. Nearly two years later the world is still scrambling. Boise was nice and cozy. I made a habit of working from the central public library’s second floor atop a large rectangular table near the stairs. From here people ascending and descending were in my periphery and a low hum of library conversations was a welcome backdrop to otherwise mundane work. I remember one conversation in particular. A librarian was talking on the telephone to a work associate in a different library branch; the library would be closed indefinitely the next day on account of Covid. There went the old normal — my most vivid memory of the beginning of America’s Covid response. Everyone knows what has followed — government-mandated masks in public places, children prohibited from attending in-person school etc. Reductionist health protocols that […]
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