Emilie Egger // During the COVID-19 pandemic, health care routines have shifted dramatically. Ill patients are dying without their loved ones and few patients are allowed advocates in hospitals or doctor’s offices; COVID patients are allowed none. Less dramatic but still significant: primary care has been moved online and elective procedures postponed indefinitely. The crisis…
Category: Covid-19 Special Issue
Pathogenesis: A Visual Diary of COVID-19
Jac Saorsa, Artist-in-Residence // All images created for this special issue by Jac Saorsa, Synapsis Artist-in-Residence. Copyright Jac Saorsa, 2020.
Behind the Beak: Plague Doctor Iconography in 2020
Madeleine Mant // 2020 is the year of the mask. Whether manufacturing, stockpiling, MacGyvering, sewing, 3D printing, or debating them, masks are (figuratively, if not literally) on everyone’s lips. The efficacy and culture of masks as personal protective equipment has been investigated for over a century’s worth of diseases, including the 1910-’11 Manchurian plague (Lynteris),…
The Endemic Pandemic: Ruminations on American Biopower under COVID-19
Erik Larsen // The gnarled cherry trees are beginning to bud in the city that George Eastman’s Kodak empire built. It’s a crisp April morning in Rochester, New York. With the exception of writing from a makeshift bedroom office, my day loosely resembles spring days of years past. But if Covid-19’s silent emergency has yet…
COVID-19 and Governmentality in Taiwan
Chia Yu Lien // By April 16, COVID-19 had infected 2,101,164 people and killed 140,773 globally. Located 81 miles from China, as predicted by John Hopkins University, Taiwan should be one of the hardest-hit countries from COVID-19. So far, however, among its population of 23 million, only 385 people have been infected, and only 6…
A Primary Source Document for a Future Historian: The Early Days of the Coronavirus Pandemic
Claire Litt // To the reader: Historians living through the COVID-19 pandemic will reckon with it on two levels. For inevitably the question that arises is not only “What is happening here?” but also “How will this event be retold?” and to that point, “What kinds of documents will exist from which this history will…
COVID-19 Special Issue: Introduction
A Letter from the Emergency Room // In early January, scientists identified SARS-CoV2 as the causative agent for a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. The first official death from Covid-19 (the infection caused by the novel coronavirus) was reported by China on January 11. The United States reported its first…
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