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Mar 1: Writing to the full Red Dawn email chain, Dr. Carter Mecher, senior advisor in the Department of Veterans Affairs, says that the United States is late to “pull all the triggers” to implement community mitigation strategies such as social distancing. Trump announces that he was ordering tighter coronavirus screening for travelers arriving in the U.S. from “high risk” countries. The U.S. reports its second coronavirus death.
Mar 2: Four more people die of Covid. President Trump claims that a vaccine will be readily available. “We’re moving aggressively to accelerate the process of developing a vaccine,” says the President at a coronavirus roundtable meeting. MSNBC host Chris Matthews resigns abruptly after criticism of sexist comments and comparing Bernie Sanders’ campaign to the Nazi invasion of France.*
The sun sits low, slate-grey in the sky today. It slides, like a glimpse of a ghost through a mirror, in and out through the blanketing clouds. This afternoon, while watching a master dance class on campus, I was reminded of how much we are shaped by living in the bodies that we have. Whether we are born white or Black, male or female, disabled or not—our bodies bear the burdens of generations before us, and define what we are now. Menominee poet, Chrystos, writes that “there are women locked in [her] joints for refusing to speak to the police” and in her broken knees lie “children torn from their families bludgeoned into government schools.”[1] She carries all of it in her bones and marrow. The physical self, a temporary shell into which all of us are thrown at birth, is already so full of those who came before us, so proscribed in what it will allow us to be and not be. I could see the dancers in the class today striving to expose the deep histories of their bodies, trying to let the “pus of the past ooze from every pore.” I could also see them struggling against the cultural identities that their corporeal realities have imposed upon them.
Are we really heading into a pandemic—that nightmare we presumed modern medicine warded off? Will my body, which carries the aches of my mother and my grandmother, which has been so sick before, betray me again? What of the brown and Black bodies that America has always disregarded, has always burdened and bludgeoned? Will they be betrayed like they have been so many times before—either by a virus or by a state that sees them as disposable? Tonight, on the television, a pediatrician and vaccine expert Dr. Paul Offit, is on Christiane Amanpour’s global affairs show on CNN. He seems to say I’m exaggerating. Another respected voice insisting that people are making too big a deal of the coronavirus. But we are all afraid that our bodies will betray us, that the world will stop being safe and predictable. You can see it in the hoarding that has begun across the nation. Hand sanitizer is selling so fast that manufacturers are struggling to make more.[2] That makes sense, given that the virus is spread from surface to hand to eyes or mouth or nose. People are also hoard-buying of medical masks. Major government health experts, the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, are all saying that only healthcare workers or the sick need to wear masks. And, even when worn, they’re rarely installed correctly, so why bother?[3] Surgeon General Jerome Adams had to go all-caps to fight off people’s fear: “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” he’s tweeting. Apparently, just staying home when you’re sick, just washing your hands with soap and water, these things are sufficient. The panic of the public is what we really need to avoid, he contends. But there are other narratives, more worrying. The Department of Defense, for instance, thinks this will indeed be a pandemic by the end of the month and is making preparations.[4] So, who do we trust, the government … or the government? Notes [1] Chrystos, “I Walk in the History of My People,” in Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (eds.), This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. SUNY Press, 2015. [2] Kate Gibson, “Demand for Hand Sanitizers up 1,400% and Sellers Are Rationing Supplies,” CBS News, March 2, 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-demand-for-household-cleaners-disinfectants-lysol-clorox-purell-sanitizers-2020-03-02/. [3] Elisabeth Buchwald, “U.S. Health Officials Say Americans Shouldn’t Wear Face Masks to Prevent Coronavirus — Here Are 3 Other Reasons Not to Wear Them,” MarketWatch, March 2, 2020, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30. [4] Jenni Fink and Naveed Jamali, “Exclusive: Defense Department Expects Coronavirus Will ‘Likely’ Become Global Pandemic in 30 Days, as Trump Strikes Serious Tone,” Newsweek, March 1, 2020, https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-department-defense-pandemic-30-days-1489876.
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People can’t stay home from work when they have no health insurance. Many Americans don’t believe coronavirus is dangerous, because Trump says it’s a hoax.
Get real. The best way to protect ourselves is to have a president who doesn’t lie daily about coronavirus. — Deborah Edwards-Oñoro (@redcrew) February 29, 2020
This mask issue is really a problem. Again, you do not protect yourself against COVID-19 by wearing a mask! The viral particles are too small and the filtration ability of surgical masks is insufficient. Even N-95 masks fail to protect you.
1/2 — Jeffrey Swisher, MD (@jeffreyswisher) February 29, 2020
President @realDonaldTrump met with pharmaceutical companies that are actively working to develop the COVID-19 vaccine, discussing how the federal government can help accelerate their vaccine development. pic.twitter.com/JX3v4GyE3N
— The White House 45 Archived (@WhiteHouse45) March 2, 2020
Since I’m encouraging New Yorkers to go on with your lives + get out on the town despite Coronavirus, I thought I would offer some suggestions. Here’s the first: thru Thurs 3/5 go see “The Traitor” @FilmLinc. If “The Wire” was a true story + set in Italy, it would be this film.
— Bill de Blasio (@BilldeBlasio) March 3, 2020
A shout out to our healthcare workers, who are putting themselves on the front lines in the worldwide effort to slow or halt the spread of Covid-19. Theirs is the face of courage and tenacity, and we should all be proud and grateful for them.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) March 2, 2020
To the idiots who cleaned out the toilet paper aisle at the North Seattle Fred Meyer, some factual information about coronavirus; 1. It does not give you diarrhea. pic.twitter.com/MLXdN5iWGu
— Larry Waldbillig (@LarryWaldbillig) March 3, 2020
Current understanding is #COVID19 spreads mostly from person to person through respiratory droplets produced when a person coughs or sneezes, similar to how flu spreads. Learn more at https://t.co/VvIzx7O3mM pic.twitter.com/MiHHHyCfTa
— CDC (@CDCgov) March 1, 2020
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) is the flu. A flu!
When Americans wake the Hell Up and see just what the media & opposition party’s sensationalism has done to this country, it won’t be pretty. From either party! Democrats will at all cost do anything to destroy @realDonaldTrump! — BraveHeart (@Braveheart_USA) February 29, 2020
🚨HAPPENING NOW🚨 Another MASSIVE #TrumpRally in Charlotte, North Carolina with Great American Patriots!#TrumpRallyCharlotte #KAG2020 pic.twitter.com/ksJfRYZIJx
— Dan Scavino🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) March 3, 2020
* Timeline summaries at the top of the page come from a variety of sources:, including The American Journal of Managed Care COVID-19 Timeline (https://www.ajmc.com/view/a-timeline-of-covid19-developments-in-2020), the Just Security Group at the NYU School of Law (https://www.justsecurity.org/69650/timeline-of-the-coronavirus-pandemic-and-u-s-response/), the “10 Things,” daily entries from The Week (theweek.com), as well as a variety of newspapers and television programs.
