newyorker--2020-07-07--The Study That Debunks Most Anti-Abortion Arguments

There is a kind of social experiment you might think of as a What if ?
study .
It would start with people who are similar in certain basic demographic ways and who are standing at the same significant fork in the road .
Researchers could not assign participants to take one path or another—that would be wildly unethical .
But let ’ s say that some more or less arbitrary rule in the world did the assigning for them .
In such circumstances , researchers could follow the resulting two groups of people over time , sliding-doors style , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ differently .
It would be like speculative fiction , only true , and with statistical significance .
A remarkable piece of research called the Turnaway Study , which began in 2007 , is essentially that sort of experiment .
Over three years , a team of researchers , led by a demographer named Diana Greene Foster , at the University of California , San Francisco , recruited 1,132 women from the waiting rooms of thirty abortion clinics in twenty-one states .
Some of the women would go on to have abortions , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they had missed the fetal gestational limit set by the clinic .
Foster and her colleagues decided to compare the women in the two groups—those who received the abortion they sought and those who were compelled to carry their unwanted pregnancy to term—on a variety of measures over time , interviewing them twice a year for up to five years .
The study is important , in part , because of its ingenious design .
It included only women whose pregnancies were unwanted enough that they were actively seeking an abortion , which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mistake that some previous studies of unplanned conceptions had— “ lumping the happy surprises in with the total disasters , ” as Foster puts it .
In terms of age , race , income level , and health status , the two groups of women closely resembled each other , as well as abortion patients nationwide .
( Foster refers to the study ’ s participants as women because , to her knowledge , there were no trans men or non-binary people among them . )
Seventy per cent of the women who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where they sought them carried the unwanted pregnancies to term .
Others miscarried or were able to obtain late abortions elsewhere , and Foster and her colleagues followed the trajectories of those in the latter group as well .
While you might guess that those who were turned away had messier lives—after all , they were getting to the clinic later than the seemingly more proactive women who made the deadline—that did not turn out to be the case .
Some of the women who got their abortions ( half of the total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wire ; among the women in the study who were denied abortions ( a quarter of the total ) , some had missed the limit by a matter of only a few days .
( The remaining quarter terminated their pregnancies in the first trimester , which is when ninety per cent of abortions in the United States occur . )
The women who were denied abortions were on average more likely to live below the poverty line than the women who managed to get them .
( One of the main reasons @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the need to raise money to pay for the procedure and for travel expenses . )
But , in general , Foster writes , the two groups “ were remarkably similar at the first interview .
Their lives diverged thereafter in ways that were directly attributable to whether they received an abortion.
” Over the past several years , findings from the Turnaway Study have come out in scholarly journals and , on a few occasions , gotten splashy media coverage .
Now Foster has published a patiently expository precis of all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ The Turnaway Study : Ten Years , a Thousand Women , and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion.
” The over-all impression it leaves is that abortion , far from harming most women , helps them in measurable ways .
Moreover , when people assess what will happen in their lives if they have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term , they are quite often proven right .
That might seem like an obvious point , but much of contemporary anti-abortion legislation is predicated on the idea that competent adults @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s at stake in deciding whether to bear a child or not .
Instead , they must be subjected to waiting periods to think it over ( as though they can ’ t be trusted to have done so already ) , presented with ( often misleading ) information about the supposed medical risks and emotional fallout of the procedure , and obliged to look at ultrasounds of the embryo or fetus .
And such scans are often framed , with breathtaking disingenuousness , as a right extended to people—what the legal scholar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be persuaded against exercising the right you came in with.
” Maybe the first and most fundamental question for a study like this to consider is how women feel afterward about their decisions to have an abortion .
In the Turnaway Study , over ninety-five per cent of the women who received an abortion and did an interview five years out said that it had been the right choice for them .
It ’ s possible that the women who remained in the study that long were disproportionately inclined to see things that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remorse about an abortion you ’ d be less up for talking about it every six months in a phone interview with a researcher .
( Foster suggests that people experiencing regrets might actually be more inclined to participate , but , to me , the first scenario makes more psychological sense . )
Still , ninety-five per cent is a striking figure .
And it ’ s especially salient , again , in light of anti-choice arguments , which often stress the notion that many of the quarter to third of all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be wracked with guilt about their decision .
( That ’ s an awful lot of abject contrition . )
You can pick at the study for its retention rate—and some critics , particularly on the anti-abortion side , have .
Nine hundred and fifty-six of the original thousand-plus women who were recruited did the first interview .
Fifty-eight per cent of them did the final interview .
But , as Foster pointed out in an e-mail to me , on average , the women in the study completed an impressive 8.4 of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the data in the study—death records and credit reports—cover all 1,132 women who were originally enrolled .
To the former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy , among others , it seemed “ unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.
” In a 2007 abortion-case ruling , he wrote that “ severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.
” It can , but the epidemiologists , psychologists , statisticians , and other researchers who evaluated the Turnaway Study found it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do cause lifetime damage ” —childhood abuse is one of them— “ but abortion is not common among these , ” Foster writes .
In the short term , the women who were denied abortions had worse mental health—higher anxiety and lower self-esteem .
In the longer run , the researchers found “ no long-term differences between women who receive and women who are denied an abortion in depression , anxiety , PTSD , self-esteem , life satisfaction , drug abuse , or alcohol abuse.
” Abortion didn ’ t weigh heavily in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other .
Foster and her co-authors note , in an earlier article , that “ relief remained the most commonly felt emotion ” among women who got the abortions they sought .
That relief persisted , but its intensity dissipated over time .

There is a kind of social experiment you might think of as a What if? study. It would start with people who are similar in certain basic demographic ways and who are standing at the same significant fork in the road. Researchers could not assign participants to take one path or another—that would be wildly unethical. But let’s say that some more or less arbitrary rule in the world did the assigning for them. In such circumstances, researchers could follow the resulting two groups of people over time, sliding-doors style, to see how their lives panned out differently. It would be like speculative fiction, only true, and with statistical significance.
A remarkable piece of research called the Turnaway Study, which began in 2007, is essentially that sort of experiment. Over three years, a team of researchers, led by a demographer named Diana Greene Foster, at the University of California, San Francisco, recruited 1,132 women from the waiting rooms of thirty abortion clinics in twenty-one states. Some of the women would go on to have abortions, but others would be turned away, because they had missed the fetal gestational limit set by the clinic. Foster and her colleagues decided to compare the women in the two groups—those who received the abortion they sought and those who were compelled to carry their unwanted pregnancy to term—on a variety of measures over time, interviewing them twice a year for up to five years.
The study is important, in part, because of its ingenious design. It included only women whose pregnancies were unwanted enough that they were actively seeking an abortion, which meant the researchers were not making the mistake that some previous studies of unplanned conceptions had—“lumping the happy surprises in with the total disasters,” as Foster puts it. In terms of age, race, income level, and health status, the two groups of women closely resembled each other, as well as abortion patients nationwide. (Foster refers to the study’s participants as women because, to her knowledge, there were no trans men or non-binary people among them.) Seventy per cent of the women who were denied abortions at the first clinic where they sought them carried the unwanted pregnancies to term. Others miscarried or were able to obtain late abortions elsewhere, and Foster and her colleagues followed the trajectories of those in the latter group as well.
While you might guess that those who were turned away had messier lives—after all, they were getting to the clinic later than the seemingly more proactive women who made the deadline—that did not turn out to be the case. Some of the women who got their abortions (half of the total participants) did so just under the wire; among the women in the study who were denied abortions (a quarter of the total), some had missed the limit by a matter of only a few days. (The remaining quarter terminated their pregnancies in the first trimester, which is when ninety per cent of abortions in the United States occur.) The women who were denied abortions were on average more likely to live below the poverty line than the women who managed to get them. (One of the main reasons that people seek abortions later in pregnancy is the need to raise money to pay for the procedure and for travel expenses.) But, in general, Foster writes, the two groups “were remarkably similar at the first interview. Their lives diverged thereafter in ways that were directly attributable to whether they received an abortion.”
Over the past several years, findings from the Turnaway Study have come out in scholarly journals and, on a few occasions, gotten splashy media coverage. Now Foster has published a patiently expository precis of all the findings in a new book, “The Turnaway Study: Ten Years, a Thousand Women, and the Consequences of Having—or Being Denied—an Abortion.” The over-all impression it leaves is that abortion, far from harming most women, helps them in measurable ways. Moreover, when people assess what will happen in their lives if they have to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, they are quite often proven right. That might seem like an obvious point, but much of contemporary anti-abortion legislation is predicated on the idea that competent adults can’t really know what’s at stake in deciding whether to bear a child or not. Instead, they must be subjected to waiting periods to think it over (as though they can’t be trusted to have done so already), presented with (often misleading) information about the supposed medical risks and emotional fallout of the procedure, and obliged to look at ultrasounds of the embryo or fetus. And such scans are often framed, with breathtaking disingenuousness, as a right extended to people—what the legal scholar Carol Sanger calls “the right to be persuaded against exercising the right you came in with.”
Maybe the first and most fundamental question for a study like this to consider is how women feel afterward about their decisions to have an abortion. In the Turnaway Study, over ninety-five per cent of the women who received an abortion and did an interview five years out said that it had been the right choice for them. It’s possible that the women who remained in the study that long were disproportionately inclined to see things that way—maybe if you were feeling shame or remorse about an abortion you’d be less up for talking about it every six months in a phone interview with a researcher. (Foster suggests that people experiencing regrets might actually be more inclined to participate, but, to me, the first scenario makes more psychological sense.) Still, ninety-five per cent is a striking figure. And it’s especially salient, again, in light of anti-choice arguments, which often stress the notion that many of the quarter to third of all American women who have an abortion will be wracked with guilt about their decision. (That’s an awful lot of abject contrition.) You can pick at the study for its retention rate—and some critics, particularly on the anti-abortion side, have. Nine hundred and fifty-six of the original thousand-plus women who were recruited did the first interview. Fifty-eight per cent of them did the final interview. But, as Foster pointed out in an e-mail to me, on average, the women in the study completed an impressive 8.4 of the eleven interviews, and some of the data in the study—death records and credit reports—cover all 1,132 women who were originally enrolled.
To the former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, among others, it seemed “unexceptionable to conclude some women come to regret their choice to abort the infant life they once created and sustained.” In a 2007 abortion-case ruling, he wrote that “severe depression and loss of esteem can follow.” It can, but the epidemiologists, psychologists, statisticians, and other researchers who evaluated the Turnaway Study found it was not likely. “Some events do cause lifetime damage”—childhood abuse is one of them—“but abortion is not common among these,” Foster writes. In the short term, the women who were denied abortions had worse mental health—higher anxiety and lower self-esteem. In the longer run, the researchers found “no long-term differences between women who receive and women who are denied an abortion in depression, anxiety, PTSD, self-esteem, life satisfaction, drug abuse, or alcohol abuse.” Abortion didn’t weigh heavily in determining mental health one way or the other. Foster and her co-authors note, in an earlier article, that “relief remained the most commonly felt emotion” among women who got the abortions they sought. That relief persisted, but its intensity dissipated over time.
Other positive impacts were more lasting. Women in the study who received the abortion they sought were more likely to be in a relationship they described as “very good.” (After two years, the figure was forty-seven per cent, vs. twenty-eight per cent for the women turned away.) If they had been involved with a physically abusive man at the time of the unwanted pregnancy, they were less likely to still be experiencing violence, for the simple reason that they were less likely to be in contact with him. (Several of the participants interviewed for the book talk about not wanting to be tethered to a terrible partner by having a child together.) Women who got the abortion were more likely to become pregnant intentionally in the next five years than women who did not. They were less likely to be on public assistance and to report that they did not have enough money to pay for food, housing, and transportation. When they had children at home already, those children were less likely to be living in poverty. Based on self-reports, their physical health was somewhat better. Two of the women in the study who were denied abortions died from childbirth-related complications; none of the women who received abortions died as a result. That is in keeping with other data attesting to the general safety of abortion. One of Foster’s colleagues, Ushma Upadhyay, analyzed complications after abortions in California’s state Medicaid program, for example, and found that they occurred in two per cent of the cases—a lower percentage than for wisdom-tooth extraction (seven per cent) and certainly for childbirth (twenty-nine per cent). Indeed, maternal mortality has been rising in the U.S.—it’s now more than twice as high as it was in 1987, and has risen even more steeply for Black women, due, in part, to racial disparities in prenatal care and the quality of hospitals where women deliver.
Yet, as Foster points out, many of the new state laws restricting abortion suggest that it is a uniquely dangerous procedure, one for which layers of regulation must be concocted, allegedly to protect women. The Louisiana law that the Supreme Court struck down last Monday imposed just such a rule—namely, a requirement that doctors performing abortions hold admitting privileges at a hospital no more than thirty miles away. As Justice Stephen Breyer’s majority opinion noted, “The evidence shows, among other things, that the fact that hospital admissions for abortion are vanishingly rare means that, unless they also maintain active OB/GYN practices, abortion providers in Louisiana are unlikely to have any recent in-hospital experience.” Since hospitals often require such experience in order to issue admitting privileges, abortion providers would be caught in a Catch-22, unable to obtain the privileges because, on actual medical grounds, they didn’t need them. The result of such a law, had it gone into effect, would have been exactly what was intended: a drastic reduction in the number of doctors legally offering abortions in the state.
The Turnaway Study’s findings are welcome ones for anyone who supports reproductive justice. But they shouldn’t be necessary for it. The overwhelming majority of women who received abortions and stayed in the study for the full five years did not regret their decision. But the vast majority of women who’d been denied abortions reported that they no longer wished that they’d been able to end the pregnancy, after an actual child of four or five was in the world. And that’s good, too—you’d hope they would love that child wholeheartedly, and you’d root for their resilience and happiness.
None of that changes the fundamental principle of human autonomy: people have to be able to make their own decisions in matters that profoundly and intimately affect their own bodies and the course of their lives. Regret and ambivalence, the ways that one decision necessarily precludes others, are inextricable facts of life, and they are also fluid and personal. Guessing the extent to which individuals may feel such emotions, hypothetically, in the future, is not a basis for legislative bans and restrictions.
The Turnaway Study will be understood, criticized, and used politically, however carefully conceived and painstakingly executed the research was. Given that inevitability, it’s worth underlining the most helpful political work that the study does. In light of its findings, the rationale for so many recent abortion restrictions—namely, that abortion is uniquely harmful to the people who choose it—simply topples.


newyorker--2020-07-07--Trump Freaks Out After Giant Statue of Obama Suddenly Appears on White House Lawn

WASHINGTON , D.C. ( The Borowitz Report ) —Donald Trump “ totally freaked out ” on Tuesday morning , after a gigantic statue of the former President Barack Obama appeared on the White House lawn overnight , sources have confirmed .
Trump first discovered the statue , which stands approximately thirty feet tall , when he awoke to see the sculptural rendering of Obama ’ s face staring at him through his bedroom window .
Shaken , Trump immediately summoned his Secret Service detail to escort him down to the White House bunker , where he unsuccessfully tried to steady @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an emergency meeting of top White House advisers was convened , during which an increasingly agitated Trump demanded to know the origin of the mysterious Obama behemoth .
Trump , who theorized that the gargantuan statue had been placed on the White House grounds by either George Soros or Jeff Bezos , ordered that the imposing monument to his predecessor be torn down and disposed of at once .
Reached by reporters at his home , Obama said that he “ wasn ’ t sure ” that he deserved a statue , especially @ @ @ @ @ @ @ surprise at Trump ’ s decision to tear it down .
“ It ’ s not like him , ” Obama said .
“ He cares so much about history.
” Obama ’ s words did little to calm Trump , however , who reportedly ordered the Secret Service to foil any plot to deposit a giant statue of Hillary Clinton on the White House lawn .

Photograph from Picture Alliance / Alamy
WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Borowitz Report)—Donald Trump “totally freaked out” on Tuesday morning, after a gigantic statue of the former President Barack Obama appeared on the White House lawn overnight, sources have confirmed.
Trump first discovered the statue, which stands approximately thirty feet tall, when he awoke to see the sculptural rendering of Obama’s face staring at him through his bedroom window.
Shaken, Trump immediately summoned his Secret Service detail to escort him down to the White House bunker, where he unsuccessfully tried to steady his nerves.
At 7 A.M., an emergency meeting of top White House advisers was convened, during which an increasingly agitated Trump demanded to know the origin of the mysterious Obama behemoth.
Trump, who theorized that the gargantuan statue had been placed on the White House grounds by either George Soros or Jeff Bezos, ordered that the imposing monument to his predecessor be torn down and disposed of at once.
Reached by reporters at his home, Obama said that he “wasn’t sure” that he deserved a statue, especially such a large one, but expressed surprise at Trump’s decision to tear it down.
“It’s not like him,” Obama said. “He cares so much about history.”
Obama’s words did little to calm Trump, however, who reportedly ordered the Secret Service to foil any plot to deposit a giant statue of Hillary Clinton on the White House lawn.


newyorker--2020-07-07--New Jersey Primary Election 2020: Live Results, Maps, and Analysis

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newyorker--2020-07-07--The Emotional Evolution of Coronavirus Doctors and Patients

Beth saw her first dead body of the day just as she was leaving the emergency department .
Earlier , she ’ d admitted a patient with the coronavirus ; now she was on her way to an upstairs doctor ’ s lounge to finish writing her notes .
Standing by the elevators , lost in thought , she nearly missed the orange body bag as it was rolled out of the car that had just opened in front of her .
She decided to take the next one .
Seconds later , another elevator opened behind her .
She @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more bodies .
While she watched , every elevator in the bay opened its doors , expelling stretcher after stretcher of bodies .
“ I felt surrounded , ” she said .
“ I ’ d never seen anything like it .
I thought I might throw up.
” An endocrinologist by training , Beth—whose name has been changed for this story—usually sees patients in an office ; when she first volunteered to help on the wards , she was nervous .
As the pandemic deepened , she ’ d grown comfortable in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d thought .
She turned to a junior colleague with whom she ’ d been waiting .
“ I knew I had to be brave , ” she said .
“ I kept it together for her.
” Thinking back now , she recalls not just the orange bags but the young woman ’ s petrified face .
For many health-care workers , initial concerns about the rationing of ventilators , masks , and gloves have been replaced with the weighty recognition that the fight against COVID-19 is not a momentary disruption @ @ @ @ @ @ @ More than a hundred and thirty-two thousand Americans have died of the virus , and the pandemic is still making its way across the country , with case counts spiking as states reopen .
There are no game-changing treatments for the disease , and no vaccine .
The pandemic will be sticking around for a while .
Even in normal times , health-care workers are at high risk for mental-health problems .
Doctors commit suicide at twice the rate of the general population ; a quarter of I.C.U .
nurses have symptoms of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show signs of depression ; more than ten per cent of graduating medical students report having suicidal thoughts .
For several years , Srijan Sen , a professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan who studies the well-being of physicians , has been following medical residents in China , using an app that asks doctors there questions about their moods .
Usually , as the Chinese New Year approaches , their collective mood improves ; this year , when the pandemic cancelled celebrations , “ we saw a pretty concerning decline in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he said .
Sen ’ s work is consistent with other recent research .
A study of nurses and doctors caring for COVID-19 patients in China found that nearly three-quarters had experienced psychological distress ; half reported symptoms of depression , and a third had difficulty sleeping .
A preliminary study in Italy found that half of health-care workers there had symptoms of P.T.S.D .
In April , these statistics became real for those in New York ’ s medical community after two clinicians , an emergency physician and an emergency medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his psychiatry practice , Sen cares for doctors struggling with mental health ; these days , he works over Zoom .
“ There ’ s an increase in concern for patients , a feeling of not being able to do as much as they normally would , ” Sen said .
“ Then there ’ s the added concern for themselves and their families .
On one hand , they feel , ‘ This is why I became a doctor.
’ On the other , it ’ s ‘ I ’ m putting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ children at risk.
’ ” In his prior work , Sen found that the prevalence and severity of mental-health issues varied from hospital to hospital .
He believes that these disparities offer a lesson for this moment .
“ My sense is that stress and anxiety will be worse in places where clinicians feel that leadership is more concerned with finances than with safety , or is not being upfront about masks and P.P.E.
, ” he told me .
“ Ultimately , you want to know that your institution is behind you.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kochav , a cardiology fellow in New York City , has cared for hundreds of critically-ill COVID-19 patients .
He describes his emotional state as having progressed through three phases .
They mirror what I ’ ve heard from other doctors , and my own experience as a hospitalist working in coronavirus wards and I.C.U.s .
The first phase , which began as the virus started its explosive , relentless spread across the city , was imbued with excitement and fear .
The excitement had to do with venturing into uncharted territory , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and trying to subdue it .
“ We were learning on the fly , but , just by being at the epicenter , we were soon among the world ’ s most experienced at treating this disease , ” Kochav said .
The fear—of losing his patients , his loved ones , his own life—was equally unprecedented .
“ When I was first treating COVID-19 patients , I knew I would get it , ” he continued .
“ I knew my wife would get it .
I had visions of her being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scared my parents would get sick and die .
I thought about which hospital I would bring them to.
” As it turned out , Kochav did get sick .
So did his wife , who has also been treating people with COVID-19 .
The fear changed how he interacted with patients and their families .
“ Dealing with family members was particularly emotional , ” he told me .
“ I saw my fears coming true in what they were experiencing .
I could so easily project myself into their position.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patients with chronic ailments , such as heart disease or diabetes .
Not so with a virus that threatens to infect everyone .
As the weeks went on , Kochav experienced a gradual hardening : phase two .
“ When you ’ re exposed and exposed and exposed to something , it becomes less scary , ” he said .
“ There was this desensitization and detachment.
” He noticed colleagues who had previously changed into street clothes before and after shifts departing the hospital in scrubs ; some forgot to put on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rooms , scurrying back to collect face shields .
His own approach to patients began to shift .
Everyone had the same disease ; many fared poorly regardless of what he did ; treatment became mechanical .
“ I felt disconnected , ” he said .
“ I ’ m not sure if it ’ s because I overinvested earlier and was just emotionally spent , or because every day was an endless stream of the same thing .
But I went from seeing every patient as my mom , my dad , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a lab value and ventilator setting.
” Others apparently felt the same way , because soon Kochav ’ s I.C.U .
developed a plan to restore humanity to its work .
The unit began asking families to send in photos and double-sided sheets describing each patient ’ s life and interests .
Some families wrote from the first-person perspective of the patient—he was introducing himself .
Soon , I.V .
poles were covered with paragraphs describing years past and laminated pictures of children , grandchildren , vacations , and graduations .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ patient ’ s ventilator settings and suddenly I ’ d see their smiling face at a barbecue , ” Kochav said .
“ I ’ m caring for people again.
” He hopes this new , third phase will last .
Coronavirus patients go through phases , too .
In early March , David and his partner , Emily , left the city with his sister and brother-in-law to stay on Long Island .
( They asked me not to use their real names to protect their privacy . )
David exercised six @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , had never been seriously ill .
When he woke up feeling unwell , he attributed his fatigue to a bad night ’ s sleep .
That evening , he entered the kitchen , where his sister was eating a sweet potato ; overcome by nausea , he started up the stairs , then fainted , hitting his head on a railing and opening a gash above his left eyebrow .

Beth saw her first dead body of the day just as she was leaving the emergency department. Earlier, she’d admitted a patient with the coronavirus; now she was on her way to an upstairs doctor’s lounge to finish writing her notes. Standing by the elevators, lost in thought, she nearly missed the orange body bag as it was rolled out of the car that had just opened in front of her. She decided to take the next one.
Seconds later, another elevator opened behind her. She turned—out came two more stretchers, two more bodies. While she watched, every elevator in the bay opened its doors, expelling stretcher after stretcher of bodies. “I felt surrounded,” she said. “I’d never seen anything like it. I thought I might throw up.”
An endocrinologist by training, Beth—whose name has been changed for this story—usually sees patients in an office; when she first volunteered to help on the wards, she was nervous. As the pandemic deepened, she’d grown comfortable in her new role, or so she’d thought. She turned to a junior colleague with whom she’d been waiting. “I knew I had to be brave,” she said. “I kept it together for her.” Thinking back now, she recalls not just the orange bags but the young woman’s petrified face.
For many health-care workers, initial concerns about the rationing of ventilators, masks, and gloves have been replaced with the weighty recognition that the fight against COVID-19 is not a momentary disruption but a new way of life. More than a hundred and thirty-two thousand Americans have died of the virus, and the pandemic is still making its way across the country, with case counts spiking as states reopen. There are no game-changing treatments for the disease, and no vaccine. The pandemic will be sticking around for a while.
Even in normal times, health-care workers are at high risk for mental-health problems. Doctors commit suicide at twice the rate of the general population; a quarter of I.C.U. nurses have symptoms of P.T.S.D.; a third of residents show signs of depression; more than ten per cent of graduating medical students report having suicidal thoughts. For several years, Srijan Sen, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Michigan who studies the well-being of physicians, has been following medical residents in China, using an app that asks doctors there questions about their moods. Usually, as the Chinese New Year approaches, their collective mood improves; this year, when the pandemic cancelled celebrations, “we saw a pretty concerning decline in mood and increase in depressive symptoms,” he said.
Sen’s work is consistent with other recent research. A study of nurses and doctors caring for COVID-19 patients in China found that nearly three-quarters had experienced psychological distress; half reported symptoms of depression, and a third had difficulty sleeping. A preliminary study in Italy found that half of health-care workers there had symptoms of P.T.S.D. In April, these statistics became real for those in New York’s medical community after two clinicians, an emergency physician and an emergency medical technician, died by suicide.
In his psychiatry practice, Sen cares for doctors struggling with mental health; these days, he works over Zoom. “There’s an increase in concern for patients, a feeling of not being able to do as much as they normally would,” Sen said. “Then there’s the added concern for themselves and their families. On one hand, they feel, ‘This is why I became a doctor.’ On the other, it’s ‘I’m putting myself, my spouse, and my children at risk.’ ” In his prior work, Sen found that the prevalence and severity of mental-health issues varied from hospital to hospital. He believes that these disparities offer a lesson for this moment. “My sense is that stress and anxiety will be worse in places where clinicians feel that leadership is more concerned with finances than with safety, or is not being upfront about masks and P.P.E.,” he told me. “Ultimately, you want to know that your institution is behind you.”
Since the pandemic started, Jonathan Kochav, a cardiology fellow in New York City, has cared for hundreds of critically-ill COVID-19 patients. He describes his emotional state as having progressed through three phases. They mirror what I’ve heard from other doctors, and my own experience as a hospitalist working in coronavirus wards and I.C.U.s.
The first phase, which began as the virus started its explosive, relentless spread across the city, was imbued with excitement and fear. The excitement had to do with venturing into uncharted territory, unravelling the mysteries of a new virus and trying to subdue it. “We were learning on the fly, but, just by being at the epicenter, we were soon among the world’s most experienced at treating this disease,” Kochav said. The fear—of losing his patients, his loved ones, his own life—was equally unprecedented. “When I was first treating COVID-19 patients, I knew I would get it,” he continued. “I knew my wife would get it. I had visions of her being intubated in an I.C.U. I was scared my parents would get sick and die. I thought about which hospital I would bring them to.”
As it turned out, Kochav did get sick. So did his wife, who has also been treating people with COVID-19. The fear changed how he interacted with patients and their families. “Dealing with family members was particularly emotional,” he told me. “I saw my fears coming true in what they were experiencing. I could so easily project myself into their position.” A doctor can feel some distance from patients with chronic ailments, such as heart disease or diabetes. Not so with a virus that threatens to infect everyone.
As the weeks went on, Kochav experienced a gradual hardening: phase two. “When you’re exposed and exposed and exposed to something, it becomes less scary,” he said. “There was this desensitization and detachment.” He noticed colleagues who had previously changed into street clothes before and after shifts departing the hospital in scrubs; some forgot to put on eye protection as they walked toward patient rooms, scurrying back to collect face shields. His own approach to patients began to shift. Everyone had the same disease; many fared poorly regardless of what he did; treatment became mechanical. “I felt disconnected,” he said. “I’m not sure if it’s because I overinvested earlier and was just emotionally spent, or because every day was an endless stream of the same thing. But I went from seeing every patient as my mom, my dad, my wife, to seeing every patient as a lab value and ventilator setting.”
Others apparently felt the same way, because soon Kochav’s I.C.U. developed a plan to restore humanity to its work. The unit began asking families to send in photos and double-sided sheets describing each patient’s life and interests. Some families wrote from the first-person perspective of the patient—he was introducing himself. Soon, I.V. poles were covered with paragraphs describing years past and laminated pictures of children, grandchildren, vacations, and graduations. “I’d go to check a patient’s ventilator settings and suddenly I’d see their smiling face at a barbecue,” Kochav said. “I’m caring for people again.” He hopes this new, third phase will last.
Coronavirus patients go through phases, too. In early March, David and his partner, Emily, left the city with his sister and brother-in-law to stay on Long Island. (They asked me not to use their real names to protect their privacy.) David exercised six days a week and, at thirty-five, had never been seriously ill. When he woke up feeling unwell, he attributed his fatigue to a bad night’s sleep. That evening, he entered the kitchen, where his sister was eating a sweet potato; overcome by nausea, he started up the stairs, then fainted, hitting his head on a railing and opening a gash above his left eyebrow.
In the coming days, he developed fevers, cough, and muscle aches. He was tired and couldn’t catch his breath. “I’d never experienced anything like it,” he said. “It felt like my chest was in a vise. I remember coughing up the most disgusting phlegm of my life.” He self-isolated. Emily started sleeping downstairs, and his sister and brother-in-law moved out. “It was extremely anxiety-provoking,” David said. “I tried to avoid the news, but inevitably I’d come across a story about some young person who was intubated and died.” His fever reached a hundred and three, and wouldn’t break with Tylenol; he began sleeping with wet towels draped over his body. His breathing grew more labored, and he took to calling Emily at the start of each night, leaving his phone on speaker until morning. “It made me feel better knowing she could hear me,” he said. “I felt a little less alone.”
Emily, who was working long hours remotely, also became David’s primary caregiver. She left meals, water, and tea outside his door, showering after every trip upstairs. “It was non-stop,” she said. “It was exhausting, and it was extremely isolating. I felt like I was on autopilot. There was no room for emotion. I had to work, care for him, and somehow try not to get sick.” One night, at around 2 A.M., David knocked on Emily’s door. “I think we should go to the hospital,” he said. She drove, and he sat in the back; both wore masks—two of their remaining four. They kept the windows open, to reduce Emily’s chances of breathing in the virus, and David couldn’t stop shivering. Forty-five minutes later, they arrived at a triage tent in a hospital parking lot. David waited with dozens of coughing patients until it was his turn to see the doctor, who took his oxygen level and told him that he didn’t meet the criteria for hospital admission. “That’s when I broke. I felt so desperate,” David told me. “He basically said, ‘You’re not sick enough to be admitted.’ I said, ‘I feel terrible. What do I need to show?’ He said, ‘If it gets worse, come back.’ I was, like, ‘It’s already worse!’ ’’
Emily saw David walking back. “That was the scariest moment,” she said. “I was praying they would admit him. He was so sick. The idea that I would have to monitor him until things got worse was terrifying. It felt like we were basically waiting for it to get so bad he might not recover.” When they returned home, Emily opened a bottle of Clorox to wipe down the kitchen. She couldn’t smell the bleach. “I stuck my nose in the bottle and took four deep inhales,” she said. “I thought maybe it was just old.” It wasn’t until later, when she couldn’t smell her mint tea, that it dawned on her. “I thought, Oh, duh, the Clorox wasn’t old. I have it, too.”
When I spoke with David, two months after he first developed symptoms, he was still nowhere near his pre-coronavirus self. “The most common question I get is whether I’m back to one hundred per cent. The answer is not even close,” he said. He’d lost fifteen pounds during his illness, and had managed to gain back only a few; he still sometimes felt short of breath when talking, and his heart raced when he walked too fast. “It’s very discouraging. I used to work out every day. Now I can’t even jog,” he said. “But I try to focus on the positive. I’m grateful to have some basic level of health back.” He plans to donate his blood to clinical trials that use antibodies from COVID-19 survivors to treat patients. “If there’s even a small chance it might prevent others from going through what I went through, I’m glad to do it.”


newyorker--2020-07-06--Back to Church, but Not, Let’s Hope, Back to Normal

I went to church for the first time in many months on Sunday ; in fact , it was the first even mildly routine public thing I ’ ve done since March .
The service was outdoors , of course , in a small open-sided tabernacle built here in the Adirondacks , along the banks of the upper Hudson , in 1908 , to serve a Methodist campground where congregations began meeting in 1871 .
Though families still come to the small collection of summer houses along the shore , the place—like Methodism—is a shadow of its former glory : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the straight-backed wooden pews for the service , so social distancing was not a problem , and though I am no young man I considerably lowered the average age when I sauntered in .
We all wore masks , and only the preacher , a safe twenty feet from the front pew , sang the hymns ; still , it felt deeply familiar and deeply comforting .
The first hymn , “ We Gather Together , ” which is often sung at Thanksgiving , had me very nearly in tears , if only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have done without of late .
And , of course , for the understanding that there are a hundred and thirty thousand fewer of us to gather than there should be .
But the point of church is not just comfort or familiarity .
It is , or should be , coming to grips with the relentless radicalism of Jesus—with the gospel demand that we love our neighbors in effective ways .
The preacher on Sunday was Janet Douglass , and she had journeyed up from Troy , near Albany , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , helping the homeless .
Her message was informed by COVID-19 and by climate change , but mostly by the ongoing push for racial justice that has been the summer ’ s great hope .
Douglass described the way that , in Biblical days , Roman power offered people the choice of acquiescence or—should they choose to fight—obliteration , and that Jesus had helped pioneer an alternative tactic , of nonviolent resistance to unjust power that he , of course , was willing to take to the grave .
This sermon came just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Seattle had died , when a driver in a white Jaguar rammed into her , and it all felt very real , even amid the pines and cedars , with the river murmuring through the rocks fifty yards to the east .
“ Faith is a team sport , ” she said .
“ What are we going to do ?
What are you going to do ?
” It seems the only question , as our institutions of all kinds begin to come slowly , fitfully back to life .
Our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : the main goal can ’ t simply be to return things to normal , because , in a world that watched George Floyd die , anything like normal is clearly unjust ; in a world that is rapidly warming , anything like normal is dangerous .
And the challenges that these institutions have in the past been willing to mount to that injustice and danger have been too feeble , too sporadic , too easily ignored in the press of routine .
You can tell how much work we have to do @ @ @ @ @ @ @ institutions are taking even now : the decision by some companies to pull ads from Facebook for a single month is both highly unusual and remarkably puny .
The Redskins might change their name ?
Great , but it took this to get there ?
Even voting out Trump will be but a necessary small step in the change that must be made .
That comforting hymn “ We Gather Together ” has a sting in its sentimental lyric .
“ The wicked oppressing , now cease from distressing , ” it demands @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the growing recognition that most of us are implicated in that oppression .
One way to think about this pause in our lives is as a rare—likely a once-in-a-lifetime—opportunity for a reset .
We actually stopped , the one thing our societies have never heretofore done .
Things ground to a halt , offering us the chance to examine our lives and our institutions .
And now , if we want it , we have a chance to rearrange them .
Sometimes we can see those rearrangements : wise cities are replacing car-dominated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for instance .
But most of it will necessarily be less visible .
If your city council or state legislature resumes normal operation without massively shifting its budget priorities , if your business just deploys its army of lobbyists to look for some more tax breaks , if your church just performs some delayed funerals and then goes back to where it was in January—well , in that case , none of this will have counted .
Much as I enjoy singing hymns , I was glad we were still masked and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had to sit apart , that instead of passing the peace with a handshake or a hug we were restricted to a namaste bow .
One hopes that these kinds of changes will last for many months to come , and not simply for reasons of public health .
They are uncomfortable reminders that we should remain uncomfortable even as life starts back up .
Normal is the enemy .

I went to church for the first time in many months on Sunday; in fact, it was the first even mildly routine public thing I’ve done since March. The service was outdoors, of course, in a small open-sided tabernacle built here in the Adirondacks, along the banks of the upper Hudson, in 1908, to serve a Methodist campground where congregations began meeting in 1871. Though families still come to the small collection of summer houses along the shore, the place—like Methodism—is a shadow of its former glory: there were but nineteen of us on the straight-backed wooden pews for the service, so social distancing was not a problem, and though I am no young man I considerably lowered the average age when I sauntered in. We all wore masks, and only the preacher, a safe twenty feet from the front pew, sang the hymns; still, it felt deeply familiar and deeply comforting. The first hymn, “We Gather Together,” which is often sung at Thanksgiving, had me very nearly in tears, if only for the sense of how much normal we have done without of late. And, of course, for the understanding that there are a hundred and thirty thousand fewer of us to gather than there should be.
But the point of church is not just comfort or familiarity. It is, or should be, coming to grips with the relentless radicalism of Jesus—with the gospel demand that we love our neighbors in effective ways. The preacher on Sunday was Janet Douglass, and she had journeyed up from Troy, near Albany, where she works on, among other things, helping the homeless. Her message was informed by COVID-19 and by climate change, but mostly by the ongoing push for racial justice that has been the summer’s great hope. Douglass described the way that, in Biblical days, Roman power offered people the choice of acquiescence or—should they choose to fight—obliteration, and that Jesus had helped pioneer an alternative tactic, of nonviolent resistance to unjust power that he, of course, was willing to take to the grave. This sermon came just a few hours after a peaceful protester in Seattle had died, when a driver in a white Jaguar rammed into her, and it all felt very real, even amid the pines and cedars, with the river murmuring through the rocks fifty yards to the east. “Faith is a team sport,” she said. “What are we going to do? What are you going to do?”
It seems the only question, as our institutions of all kinds begin to come slowly, fitfully back to life. Our churches, our governments, our businesses: the main goal can’t simply be to return things to normal, because, in a world that watched George Floyd die, anything like normal is clearly unjust; in a world that is rapidly warming, anything like normal is dangerous. And the challenges that these institutions have in the past been willing to mount to that injustice and danger have been too feeble, too sporadic, too easily ignored in the press of routine. You can tell how much work we have to do by the smallness of the steps that institutions are taking even now: the decision by some companies to pull ads from Facebook for a single month is both highly unusual and remarkably puny. The Redskins might change their name? Great, but it took this to get there? Even voting out Trump will be but a necessary small step in the change that must be made. That comforting hymn “We Gather Together” has a sting in its sentimental lyric. “The wicked oppressing, now cease from distressing,” it demands, and so must we, with the growing recognition that most of us are implicated in that oppression.
One way to think about this pause in our lives is as a rare—likely a once-in-a-lifetime—opportunity for a reset. We actually stopped, the one thing our societies have never heretofore done. Things ground to a halt, offering us the chance to examine our lives and our institutions. And now, if we want it, we have a chance to rearrange them. Sometimes we can see those rearrangements: wise cities are replacing car-dominated streets with bike lanes and pedestrian malls, for instance. But most of it will necessarily be less visible. If your city council or state legislature resumes normal operation without massively shifting its budget priorities, if your business just deploys its army of lobbyists to look for some more tax breaks, if your church just performs some delayed funerals and then goes back to where it was in January—well, in that case, none of this will have counted.
Much as I enjoy singing hymns, I was glad we were still masked and silent on Sunday morning, that we had to sit apart, that instead of passing the peace with a handshake or a hug we were restricted to a namaste bow. One hopes that these kinds of changes will last for many months to come, and not simply for reasons of public health. They are uncomfortable reminders that we should remain uncomfortable even as life starts back up. Normal is the enemy.


newyorker--2020-07-08--Tough-Guy Things I Can Do Because I Don’t Wear a Face Mask

Spit anywhere I want .
Got that , Mask Boy ?
Smoke big-ass cigars .
Not only does it look boss as hell , it keeps me from eating too much candy .
Let ’ s just say that I ’ ve earned a reputation for having a sweet tooth , which is why the fellas call me Sweetie .
It ’ s one of those tough-guy nicknames that ’ s ironic , because I ’ m anything but sweet .
Trust me .
They just as well could ’ ve given me the nickname Jawbreaker instead .
Great , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those .
Thanks a lot , Masky Wonka .
Smooch bodacious babes .
Tattooed hotties who have piercings and hair so red you almost forget that the smoke is coming from my stogie and not their scalps .
I ’ m talking perfect tens , and they ’ d kill for a night with a rebel like me .
My Facebook is full of them and they click “ like ” on all the comments that I leave on their pics—but you wouldn ’ t know anything about that , would you , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ show that I ’ m not exactly happy with how close you ’ re getting to my PT Cruiser .
That ’ s right , the one with a Harley-Davidson sticker .
The only souls who can lay hands on this throbbing hunk of American muscle and live to talk about it are me , myself , and the guy at Jiffy Lube who changes the oil for me—so back off , buddy .
Or I ’ ll breathe .
That ’ s what you ’ re so afraid of , right ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ your Spin City , Michael J. Sux .
Whistle when I see the price of gas .
If I do it just once ?
Yikes .
Twice ?
Whoa , momma !
They ’ re practically giving that diesel away .
My Chrysler kitty only purrs for regular , but I like to rep for my fellow bad boys who are out there hauling ass in a semi .
When I see them on the road , I like to give a little salute to show that we ’ re cut from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with one finger , but I wouldn ’ t expect anything less .
If you don ’ t like it , maybe see if you can buy one of those masks for your eyes , Zerro .
( You know , like Zorro , but a loser . )
Speak freely and clearly without any stupid fabric silencing my words .
If I ’ m going to tell someone to shut up and stop calling this number because the person they ’ re trying to reach doesn ’ t live here anymore , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hiding behind a mask .
Just like I don ’ t hide behind one when I post online .
I wish I could take credit for the image of a Minion dressed like the Punisher bowing down before God , who is wearing a “ Fire Fauci ” T-shirt with the sleeves cut off while whizzing on the CNN logo , which I reply to medical experts and other trolls with , but the name of the artist remains unknown .
Maybe you can look it up , Mask Ruffalo-when-he-played-a-journalist-in-that-movie .
Beat-box .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I only like hard-rock music .
If they don ’ t have their guitar picks hanging in a Hard Rock Cafe , they ’ re not badass enough for me .
Sorry , Biz Maskie .
Hang a toothpick from my lip .
I ’ m not sure why this is a tough-guy thing , but it is .
My guess is that no one has ever been brave enough to ask a guy with a toothpick hanging from his lip why it ’ s there .
But I totally get it , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
Kind of like how I can understand why I don ’ t need to wear a mask , but can ’ t explain it without getting all pissed off .
Especially not to you , Maskhole .
Eat whatever I ’ d like .
The grocery store won ’ t let me in without a mask , but it ’ s still a free country in my condo—so everything in my cupboard is fair game .
I ’ ve got cans of Manwich and a box of giant novelty-sized lollipops one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Secret Santa this year , as a joke .
The sugary shards are shredding my gums , but luckily blood is my favorite condiment , besides aioli mayonnaise .
You must be drooling under that mask , aren ’ t you , Mask Baby ?
Ha !
You can ’ t stand to see me living my best life , munching on lolly after lolly .
P.P.E.
?
More like P.P.U .
That is one stinky diaper you got there , Mask Baby .
Seriously , the smell is making my tummy hurt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that , Mask Boy ?
I mean , Dr .
Mask Boy .

Spit anywhere I want. Got that, Mask Boy?
Smoke big-ass cigars. Not only does it look boss as hell, it keeps me from eating too much candy. Let’s just say that I’ve earned a reputation for having a sweet tooth, which is why the fellas call me Sweetie. It’s one of those tough-guy nicknames that’s ironic, because I’m anything but sweet. Trust me. They just as well could’ve given me the nickname Jawbreaker instead. Great, now I’m craving one of those. Thanks a lot, Masky Wonka.
Smooch bodacious babes. Tattooed hotties who have piercings and hair so red you almost forget that the smoke is coming from my stogie and not their scalps. I’m talking perfect tens, and they’d kill for a night with a rebel like me. My Facebook is full of them and they click “like” on all the comments that I leave on their pics—but you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Mask Zuckernerd?
Grit my teeth to show that I’m not exactly happy with how close you’re getting to my PT Cruiser. That’s right, the one with a Harley-Davidson sticker. The only souls who can lay hands on this throbbing hunk of American muscle and live to talk about it are me, myself, and the guy at Jiffy Lube who changes the oil for me—so back off, buddy. Or I’ll breathe. That’s what you’re so afraid of, right? Well, I refuse to live in your Spin City, Michael J. Sux.
Whistle when I see the price of gas. If I do it just once? Yikes. Twice? Whoa, momma! They’re practically giving that diesel away. My Chrysler kitty only purrs for regular, but I like to rep for my fellow bad boys who are out there hauling ass in a semi. When I see them on the road, I like to give a little salute to show that we’re cut from the same leather. They usually salute back with one finger, but I wouldn’t expect anything less. If you don’t like it, maybe see if you can buy one of those masks for your eyes, Zerro. (You know, like Zorro, but a loser.)
Speak freely and clearly without any stupid fabric silencing my words. If I’m going to tell someone to shut up and stop calling this number because the person they’re trying to reach doesn’t live here anymore, I’m not going to be hiding behind a mask. Just like I don’t hide behind one when I post online. I wish I could take credit for the image of a Minion dressed like the Punisher bowing down before God, who is wearing a “Fire Fauci” T-shirt with the sleeves cut off while whizzing on the CNN logo, which I reply to medical experts and other trolls with, but the name of the artist remains unknown. Maybe you can look it up, Mask Ruffalo-when-he-played-a-journalist-in-that-movie.
Beat-box. But I won’t, because I only like hard-rock music. If they don’t have their guitar picks hanging in a Hard Rock Cafe, they’re not badass enough for me. Sorry, Biz Maskie.
Hang a toothpick from my lip. I’m not sure why this is a tough-guy thing, but it is. My guess is that no one has ever been brave enough to ask a guy with a toothpick hanging from his lip why it’s there. But I totally get it, even if I can’t explain it. Kind of like how I can understand why I don’t need to wear a mask, but can’t explain it without getting all pissed off. Especially not to you, Maskhole.
Eat whatever I’d like. The grocery store won’t let me in without a mask, but it’s still a free country in my condo—so everything in my cupboard is fair game. I’ve got cans of Manwich and a box of giant novelty-sized lollipops one of the fellas got me for tough-guy Secret Santa this year, as a joke. The sugary shards are shredding my gums, but luckily blood is my favorite condiment, besides aioli mayonnaise. You must be drooling under that mask, aren’t you, Mask Baby? Ha! You can’t stand to see me living my best life, munching on lolly after lolly. P.P.E.? More like P.P.U. That is one stinky diaper you got there, Mask Baby. Seriously, the smell is making my tummy hurt.
Spit anytime I want. Got that, Mask Boy? I mean, Dr. Mask Boy.


newyorker--2020-07-08--How Virginia Woolf Kept Her Brother Alive in Letters

Hours after watching her twenty-six-year-old brother die , Virginia Stephen wrote a letter to one of her dearest friends .
In that letter , written on November 20 , 1906 , she did not utter a word about her brother ’ s death ; she did not so much as mention his name .
Virginia was twenty-four—six years from marrying and becoming Virginia Woolf , nine years from publishing her first novel .
She and her three siblings had just returned from a trip to Greece and Turkey , which had ended in disaster .
Thoby Stephen , Virginia ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with typhoid .
The letter Virginia wrote the day he died was to Violet Dickinson , who had accompanied the Stephens on their trip .
She , too , had come home with typhoid .
The two women had been exchanging letters since their return to London , many of them preoccupied with Thoby ’ s and Violet ’ s health .
That Virginia would have neglected to mention her brother ’ s death to Violet was strange ; stranger still was the letter she sent two days after his death .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but her letter conveyed a shocking lie : “ Thoby is as well as possible .
We aren ’ t anxious.
” Virginia went on lying to her friend for the next month .
In nineteen letters , sent over the course of twenty-eight days , she fabricated a vivid story of Thoby ’ s recovery .
Three days after his death : “ There isnt much change .
His temp is up to 104 again this afternoon , but otherwise his pulse is good , and he takes milk well.
” Five @ @ @ @ @ @ @ splendidly.
” Nine days : “ Dear old Thoby is still on his back—but manages to be about as full of life in that position as most people are on their hind legs.
” Twelve days : “ He draws birds in bed.
” After two weeks , Virginia slipped herself into the narrative : “ We begin to flirt with our nurses , and call them ‘ my woman ’ and they knit pale blue ties which they promise him , if he ’ s good.
” And when nearly a month @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Virginia was full of talk about what lay ahead : “ He is really getting on well , and we talk of getting up , and going away , and the future.
” The future .
From where I sit today and write , Virginia ’ s desire to leave behind a climate of illness , to get up and go away , to be transported to a future one can ’ t quite see—and which may not exist—feels familiar and intense .
I want to get in my car and drive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ if I drive far enough , for long enough , I will have found my way not only into a different place but into a different time , released from today ’ s grief and dread .
The fantasy is interwoven with worry : in our fond talk of what we ’ ll do after “ all this ” is over , are we , like Virginia , deceiving one another , and ourselves ?
Or might our dreams of escape make room for other possibilities , worlds we want to live in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Can desire be a way of knowing ?
Recently , I ’ ve found myself drawn to these early Woolf letters—to their unsettling mix of grief and hope , loss and desire—because in them I see a writer experimenting , perilously , with fantasy ’ s transformative potential .
To some extent , all letters do this : if I write you a letter today , my words will have to be legible to you days from now .
Our friendship will have to stretch to accommodate this asynchrony .
Though the present @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you nowhere but in its pages , the stitching together of my present with yours will pull us both out of our lives , however briefly , and into a notional but shared time .
Asynchrony becomes , in letter writing , its own form of intimacy .
In our time of social distancing , it sometimes feels like the only intimacy we have left .
Kept literally apart , we text and e-mail , tweet and D.M .
Where can it lead us ?
Correspondence may seem like a dim shadow of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it has its own rewards .
Consider what it feels like to receive a letter .
In some ways , the letter ’ s company exceeds what can be received in person .
If you visit me , you can leave whenever you please .
Send me a letter , though , and it ’ s mine for as long as I want .
Emily Dickinson—for whom so much of sociality was epistolary—described , in a poem , the expansive effects of reading a letter .
Alone in her room , she could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an envelope and feel herself lifted out of her life—suddenly possessed of divine power .
“ Peruse how infinite I am , ” she gloats .
Such transformations become addictive .
“ Please never stop writing me letters , ” Elizabeth Bishop wrote to Robert Lowell : “ they always manage to make me feel like my higher self.
” By the time Thoby died , Virginia Stephen and Violet Dickinson had been correspondents for nearly five years .
Virginia ’ s letters to Violet ( among the hundreds published in the first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) began when she was twenty and her father had recently been diagnosed with cancer .
Violet was seventeen years older and nearly a foot taller than Virginia .
“ I wish you were a Kangaroo , ” Virginia wrote , immersed in anxiety and sadness about her father ’ s decline , “ and had a pouch for small Kangaroos to creep to.
” In a photograph of the two women standing side by side during this period , that desire for maternal protection is palpable ; Virginia leans into Violet and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be taken in ; she looks at the camera as though she wants that desire to be known .
Letters gave the women another way to embrace .
In them , Virginia referred to herself as Violet ’ s “ Sparroy ” ( derived from “ sparrow ” ) , offering herself to this older woman as though she were a delicate pet .
As her father recovered from an operation , Virginia asked Violet , “ Have you a real affection for the Sparroy ?
She folds you in her feathery arms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Heart in her ribs.
” The letter became a means by which Virginia could not only declare a desire but , as it were , act it out : she folded Violet into her feathery arms , then folded the sheet of paper that was destined for Violet ’ s hands .
The materials of her letter writing—pen and ink , paper—double for Virginia ’ s distant body : in another letter , she wrote , “ you observe how thick the ink gets at this point—quite spontaneous.
” We don ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women ever moved off the page , but there are moments in the letters that suggest as much .
“ I will lick you tenderly , ” Virginia promised .
In the midst of this correspondence , two years before Thoby died , Virginia lost her father .
She kept writing to Violet through the worst of it .
The letters become shorter : daily updates on her father ’ s temperature , his mood , the doctors ’ latest prognoses .
But we also see , amid that horror , Virginia reaching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a letter .
Watching her father suffer near the very end , Virginia wrote , “ It does seem very hard .
Life , I am sure , is no pleasure to him—and he would have been glad to die a week ago—but theres no help for it .
It is so hard to wait and see him get slowly weaker day by day .
But these are the things one has to go through in this Brute of a world apparently.
” Then , having acknowledged this terrible truth , she asked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ balm that only a letter from Violet could provide .
“ Tell me about your clothes , ” she wrote , “ and triumphs .
”

For Virginia Woolf, correspondence became a way to transcend a climate of illness—to envision a future she couldn’t see. Photograph from Alamy
Hours after watching her twenty-six-year-old brother die, Virginia Stephen wrote a letter to one of her dearest friends. In that letter, written on November 20, 1906, she did not utter a word about her brother’s death; she did not so much as mention his name. Virginia was twenty-four—six years from marrying and becoming Virginia Woolf, nine years from publishing her first novel. She and her three siblings had just returned from a trip to Greece and Turkey, which had ended in disaster. Thoby Stephen, Virginia’s eldest brother, had been infected with typhoid.
The letter Virginia wrote the day he died was to Violet Dickinson, who had accompanied the Stephens on their trip. She, too, had come home with typhoid. The two women had been exchanging letters since their return to London, many of them preoccupied with Thoby’s and Violet’s health. That Virginia would have neglected to mention her brother’s death to Violet was strange; stranger still was the letter she sent two days after his death. This time, she did mention him, but her letter conveyed a shocking lie: “Thoby is as well as possible. We aren’t anxious.”
Virginia went on lying to her friend for the next month. In nineteen letters, sent over the course of twenty-eight days, she fabricated a vivid story of Thoby’s recovery. Three days after his death: “There isnt much change. His temp is up to 104 again this afternoon, but otherwise his pulse is good, and he takes milk well.” Five days: “Thoby is going on splendidly.” Nine days: “Dear old Thoby is still on his back—but manages to be about as full of life in that position as most people are on their hind legs.” Twelve days: “He draws birds in bed.” After two weeks, Virginia slipped herself into the narrative: “We begin to flirt with our nurses, and call them ‘my woman’ and they knit pale blue ties which they promise him, if he’s good.” And when nearly a month had passed since her brother had died, Virginia was full of talk about what lay ahead: “He is really getting on well, and we talk of getting up, and going away, and the future.”
The future. From where I sit today and write, Virginia’s desire to leave behind a climate of illness, to get up and go away, to be transported to a future one can’t quite see—and which may not exist—feels familiar and intense. I want to get in my car and drive; sometimes I catch myself thinking that if I drive far enough, for long enough, I will have found my way not only into a different place but into a different time, released from today’s grief and dread. The fantasy is interwoven with worry: in our fond talk of what we’ll do after “all this” is over, are we, like Virginia, deceiving one another, and ourselves? Or might our dreams of escape make room for other possibilities, worlds we want to live in but can’t yet describe? Can desire be a way of knowing?
Recently, I’ve found myself drawn to these early Woolf letters—to their unsettling mix of grief and hope, loss and desire—because in them I see a writer experimenting, perilously, with fantasy’s transformative potential. To some extent, all letters do this: if I write you a letter today, my words will have to be legible to you days from now. Our friendship will have to stretch to accommodate this asynchrony. Though the present tense of my letter will exist for you nowhere but in its pages, the stitching together of my present with yours will pull us both out of our lives, however briefly, and into a notional but shared time. Asynchrony becomes, in letter writing, its own form of intimacy.
In our time of social distancing, it sometimes feels like the only intimacy we have left. Kept literally apart, we text and e-mail, tweet and D.M. Where can it lead us? Correspondence may seem like a dim shadow of the physical presence we crave, but it has its own rewards. Consider what it feels like to receive a letter. In some ways, the letter’s company exceeds what can be received in person. If you visit me, you can leave whenever you please. Send me a letter, though, and it’s mine for as long as I want. Emily Dickinson—for whom so much of sociality was epistolary—described, in a poem, the expansive effects of reading a letter. Alone in her room, she could “slowly pick the lock” of an envelope and feel herself lifted out of her life—suddenly possessed of divine power. “Peruse how infinite I am,” she gloats. Such transformations become addictive. “Please never stop writing me letters,” Elizabeth Bishop wrote to Robert Lowell: “they always manage to make me feel like my higher self.”
By the time Thoby died, Virginia Stephen and Violet Dickinson had been correspondents for nearly five years. Virginia’s letters to Violet (among the hundreds published in the first volume of Woolf’s collected letters) began when she was twenty and her father had recently been diagnosed with cancer. Violet was seventeen years older and nearly a foot taller than Virginia. “I wish you were a Kangaroo,” Virginia wrote, immersed in anxiety and sadness about her father’s decline, “and had a pouch for small Kangaroos to creep to.” In a photograph of the two women standing side by side during this period, that desire for maternal protection is palpable; Virginia leans into Violet and clasps her hand; she wants to be taken in; she looks at the camera as though she wants that desire to be known.
Letters gave the women another way to embrace. In them, Virginia referred to herself as Violet’s “Sparroy” (derived from “sparrow”), offering herself to this older woman as though she were a delicate pet. As her father recovered from an operation, Virginia asked Violet, “Have you a real affection for the Sparroy? She folds you in her feathery arms, so that you may feel the Heart in her ribs.” The letter became a means by which Virginia could not only declare a desire but, as it were, act it out: she folded Violet into her feathery arms, then folded the sheet of paper that was destined for Violet’s hands. The materials of her letter writing—pen and ink, paper—double for Virginia’s distant body: in another letter, she wrote, “you observe how thick the ink gets at this point—quite spontaneous.” We don’t know whether the sexual desire between these women ever moved off the page, but there are moments in the letters that suggest as much. “I will lick you tenderly,” Virginia promised.
In the midst of this correspondence, two years before Thoby died, Virginia lost her father. She kept writing to Violet through the worst of it. The letters become shorter: daily updates on her father’s temperature, his mood, the doctors’ latest prognoses. But we also see, amid that horror, Virginia reaching out to Violet for the comfort of a letter. Watching her father suffer near the very end, Virginia wrote, “It does seem very hard. Life, I am sure, is no pleasure to him—and he would have been glad to die a week ago—but theres no help for it. It is so hard to wait and see him get slowly weaker day by day. But these are the things one has to go through in this Brute of a world apparently.” Then, having acknowledged this terrible truth, she asked, in a postscript, for the balm that only a letter from Violet could provide. “Tell me about your clothes,” she wrote, “and triumphs.”
Virginia sank beneath the grief of her father’s death. She sank into what she would understand as a nervous breakdown. And she sank, eventually, into Violet’s arms. Virginia recovered from that breakdown in Violet’s home in Welwyn, outside London. She didn’t write any letters during that period, but when, after three months, she was deemed well enough to rejoin her siblings, she wrote to Violet: “I think the blood has really been getting into my brain at last. It is the oddest feeling, as though a dead part of me were coming to life.” Coming back to life, for Virginia, meant regaining the ability to think. What followed close behind was an insistent desire to write: “I am longing to begin work. I know I can write, and one of these days I mean to produce a good book.”
The letters Virginia wrote to Violet during her father’s illness testify to the power of correspondence to provide company, comfort, and even love. Something else is at work, though, in the letters she wrote in the wake of Thoby’s death, two years later. If the recipient of a letter has one kind of power (the power to inhabit someone else’s world, and to linger in it), the sender of a letter has a different kind, just as radical: the power to perform; the power to withhold; the power, even, to deceive. What was it that drew Virginia, in the wake of her brother’s death, to this aspect of letter writing?
Violet learned of Thoby’s death only because it was mentioned, a month after the fact, as an aside in a magazine article. Virginia wrote to her immediately: “Do you hate me for telling so many lies? You know we had to do it.” She had to lie, Virginia implies, in order to shield Violet, who was recovering from her own illness. No doubt Virginia did feel intense concern for Violet; in Thoby she had a vivid example, close at hand, of how dangerous typhoid could be. Throughout her letters, Virginia linked the two cases. The day before Thoby’s death—his infection had led to a perforation of his bowels and peritonitis—Virginia had written to Violet: “I don’t know what variety of spots yours are. Thoby swears he beats your temperature, and we are a little scornful of the Dickinson typhoid compared to the Stephen typhoid.” That kind of dark humor masked not only the severity of Thoby’s symptoms but also the urgency of Virginia’s concern for Violet. In the days that followed, without acknowledging his death, Virginia used her brother’s case as a point of reference for understanding her friend’s: “I suppose you and he are about at the same stage now, only I think he has had a much sharper attack.” Ten days later, Virginia ventriloquized her dead brother: “Are you allowed solids yet, he wants to know.” Virginia’s epistolary resurrection of Thoby gave her a way of expressing a fervent wish that Violet stay alive and well. “Now, my Violet,” she wrote, nearly a month into her elaborate lie, “take your medicine and think of me. Shall we ever meet again?”
Virginia’s performance wasn’t only for Violet’s benefit, though. She had also found a way of pretending, for herself, that her brother had in fact survived. In her brilliant biography of Woolf, Hermione Lee writes that these strange letters “mark the beginning of her keeping Thoby by turning him into fiction.” Woolf would return to this elegiac turn of thought over the years, formalizing it in novels: versions of Thoby can be found again in “Jacob’s Room” (1922) and “The Waves” (1931), and versions of their parents in “To the Lighthouse” (1927). In “A Sketch of the Past,” a memoir begun near the end of her life, Woolf explained that her capacity to respond to a “shock” had made her into a writer:


newyorker--2020-07-09--How Jair Bolsonaro and the Coronavirus Put Brazil’s Systemic Racism on Display

Several months before the coronavirus first arrived in Brazil , this spring , a series of man-made tragedies befell Maria Marques Martins dos Santos .
On November 12 , 2019 , dos Santos , a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three , whose five-foot frame is crowned by curly brown hair , was at her home , in Favela do Amor , in São Paulo .
Just after midnight , her fourteen-year-old son , Lucas , went out to buy soda and cookies and never returned .
Three days later , his drowned body was found in a nearby lake , after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military police .
Four days later , when dos Santos went to the police station to try to identify which officers had attacked her son , the police detained her , telling her that there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest .
Eleven days later , on November 30th , in handcuffs and jail clothes , she looked on in pain as her son ’ s decayed body was buried in a sealed coffin .
Over the next four months , with dos Santos in jail , the coronavirus arrived in Brazil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spreading to poorer neighborhoods and prisons .
São Paulo ’ s penitentiaries , which hold about forty per cent of Brazil ’ s total incarcerated population , are notorious for their lack of health care .
Dos Santos ’ s family feared that she had effectively been given a death sentence .
All over the world , the coronavirus pandemic has exposed and exacerbated class and racial inequalities .
In Brazil , where the six richest men hold the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the population , the crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and brown people has challenged the country ’ s popular , deep-seated illusion of being an equal , raceless society .
Largely by incarcerating Black and brown people , Brazil has , in the past decade , become home to the world ’ s third-largest prison and jail population , overtaking Russia .
In that time , the country ’ s prison population has doubled .
Brazil ’ s prisons are breeding grounds for sicknesses : water is rationed ; a lack of on-site medical care means that sick people are constantly shuttled @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prisons ; and overcrowding is endemic—on average , prisons in Brazil exceed their capacity by sixty-six per cent .
For dos Santos and Brazil ’ s seven hundred thousand other inmates , social isolation is impossible .
Amazingly , a full thirty per cent of the people incarcerated in Brazil have not been convicted of a crime .
About a third of the country ’ s prisoners are behind bars on drug charges , and the majority of them are Black mothers like dos Santos .
Recognizing the threat of the pandemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ judicial-oversight board , recommended in March that judges release prisoners who have not committed violent crimes and who are members of at-risk groups : pregnant women , nursing mothers , and mothers or legal guardians of children up to twelve years old .
“ In São Paulo alone , there are 11,284 people with no history of criminality that have a right to reduced sentences under this guidance , ” Marcelo Novaes , dos Santos ’ s lawyer , told me .
But judges , who are the only officials who can lower @ @ @ @ @ @ @ so : under the guidelines issued by the National Justice Council , thirty-five thousand prisoners are eligible for release , and of the twenty-five thousand who have applied for it judges have released only seven hundred thus far .
As the coronavirus has spread in Brazil , the country has experienced the second-highest number of infections and deaths of any nation in the world , behind only the United States .
In its jails and prisons , some inmates are preëmptively writing goodbye letters to their families .
“ What we are trying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Luciana Zaffalon , a Brazilian criminal-justice-reform advocate , told me .
Zaffalon leads the Brazilian Platform for Drug Policy , one of several groups pressing judges to release vulnerable prisoners .
In 2006 , a law passed that allowed leniency toward users and instituted harsher measures on dealers .
In response , prosecutors and judges shifted to charging people with small amounts of cocaine or crack as dealers , which carry sentences of between five and fifteen years .
Advocates for criminal-justice reform say that judges also began charging poor , often Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them can afford costly private defense lawyers and are therefore easier to convict than wealthy defendants .
As a result , between 2000 and 2016 , the population of women in prison rose nearly seven hundred per cent , to roughly forty-four thousand inmates .
Zaffalon , who is the former ombudsman general of São Paulo state ’ s public defender ’ s office , blamed the government ’ s resistance to releasing people on a tough-on-crime mentality among judges which has disproportionately affected poor Black and brown people .
“ Almost all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people who don ’ t have money to hire a private lawyer to appeal their cases , ” she said .
Corruption has long plagued Brazil ’ s court system .
Most of the judiciary budget goes to the salaries of judges , many of whom are older , white men who graduated from the country ’ s élite universities .
The Justa Project , an organization fighting for increased judicial transparency , found that a hundred per cent of those who become judges end up in the top 0.08-per-cent wealthiest segment of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is a clear sign of systemic racism and corruption .
Since March , a visitation ban at prisons has prevented families from bringing food to the incarcerated—a common practice in a country where many inmates , owing to the gross underfunding of the prison system , are underfed .
Andrelina Amélia Ferreira , who leads the movement Mães do Cárcere ( Mothers of the Incarcerated ) , told me that she has heard stories of inmates eating toothpaste out of desperation and hunger .
“ Even if they get sick , ” Ferreira @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to die with their family and not alone in prison.
” For the past eighteen years , Ferreira has used her home as her headquarters , and counselled twenty to thirty women a day there .
She told me she fears for the lives of prisoners in a way that she never has before .
“ I am a woman who grew up in a simple community , inside the periphery , and I can say that I have never been so afraid as I am right now , ” she told me @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will stay alive , who won ’ t. ” On Tuesday , after mocking the risk of coronavirus infection for months , Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced that he had tested positive for the virus .
Since the arrival of the pandemic in Brazil , Bolsonaro has single-handedly created chaos : he has belittled its severity , despite overwhelming evidence of its danger ; publicly defied social-isolation measures by walking among crowds and shaking hands , and encouraging others to do so ; fought with and fired a health minister , and undermined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country ’ s leaders .
Asked about the rising number of cases in São Paulo , in an interview on March 27th , Bolsonaro replied , “ I ’ m sorry—some people will die .
They will die .
That ’ s life .
You can ’ t stop a car factory because of traffic deaths.
” As infection rates have risen in Brazil , a clearer picture has emerged of which lives the President apparently deems disposable .
In the beginning of the outbreak , the largest number of cases were in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tests .
Over time , workers at the Vila Formosa necropolis , the largest cemetery in Latin America , noticed an acceleration in deaths among people on the peripheries of the city .
Now the rate in favelas and peripheries is officially ten times higher than the average in the rest of the country .
More than half of Brazil ’ s cases are in its southeastern region , where roughly ten million people live in homes not connected to sewerage networks , and about seven million have no access to running water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health system is extreme , as well .
Sixty per cent of the I.C.U .
beds in the state of São Paulo are in three of its wealthiest regions , and only twenty-five per cent of the population nationally has private health insurance or can afford it .
The resulting disparity by race in coronavirus-related death rates is glaring : Blacks in São Paulo are sixty-two per cent more likely to die from COVID-19 than whites .
Raquel Rolnik , a professor of urban planning at the University of São Paulo and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , told me that the impact of the pandemic has been exacerbated because “ the virus arrived to a dismantled country.
” Since the nineteen-sixties , the cost of housing in Brazil has been beyond the means of the average worker .
“ The mantra should be ‘ stay home , ’ ” Rolnik said , but , “ in the case of Brazil , in order to stay home , you have to have a home to begin with.
” When he took office , Bolsonaro disbanded the Ministry of Cities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billion reals in housing over a decade , much of it public housing for low-income Brazilians .
“ Now it is wilderness again , ” Rolnik said .

Several months before the coronavirus first arrived in Brazil, this spring, a series of man-made tragedies befell Maria Marques Martins dos Santos. On November 12th, dos Santos, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of three, whose five-foot frame is crowned by curly brown hair, was at her home, in Favela do Amor, in São Paulo. Just after midnight, her fourteen-year-old son, Lucas, went out to buy soda and cookies and never returned. Three days later, his drowned body was found in a nearby lake, after what witnesses said was an encounter with military police. Four days later, when dos Santos went to the police station to try to identify which officers had attacked her son, the police detained her, telling her that there was an outstanding warrant for her arrest. Eleven days later, on November 30th, in handcuffs and jail clothes, she looked on in pain as her son’s decayed body was buried in a sealed coffin.
Over the next four months, with dos Santos in jail, the coronavirus arrived in Brazil, first afflicting the wealthy and then spreading to poorer neighborhoods and prisons. São Paulo’s penitentiaries, which hold about forty per cent of Brazil’s total incarcerated population, are notorious for their lack of health care. Dos Santos’s family feared that she had effectively been given a death sentence. All over the world, the coronavirus pandemic has exposed and exacerbated class and racial inequalities. In Brazil, where the six richest men hold the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the population, the crisis’s disproportionate burden on poor Black and brown people has challenged the country’s popular, deep-seated illusion of being an equal, raceless society. Largely by incarcerating Black and brown people, Brazil has, in the past decade, become home to the world’s third-largest prison and jail population, overtaking Russia. In that time, the country’s prison population has doubled. Brazil’s prisons are breeding grounds for sickness: water is rationed; a lack of on-site medical care means that sick people are constantly shuttled back and forth between public hospitals and prisons; and overcrowding is endemic—on average, prisons in Brazil exceed their capacity by sixty-six per cent. For dos Santos and Brazil’s seven hundred thousand other inmates, social isolation is impossible.
Amazingly, a full thirty per cent of the people incarcerated in Brazil have not been convicted of a crime. About a third of the country’s prisoners are behind bars on drug charges, and the majority of them are Black mothers like dos Santos. Recognizing the threat of the pandemic, the National Justice Council, a government judicial-oversight board, recommended in March that judges release prisoners who have not committed violent crimes and who are members of at-risk groups: pregnant women, nursing mothers, and mothers or legal guardians of children up to twelve years old. “In São Paulo alone, there are 11,284 people with no history of criminality that have a right to reduced sentences under this guidance,” Marcelo Novaes, dos Santos’s lawyer, told me. But judges, who are the only officials who can lower sentences, have been reluctant to do so: under the guidelines issued by the National Justice Council, thirty-five thousand prisoners are eligible for release, and of the twenty-five thousand who have applied for it judges have released only seven hundred thus far. As the coronavirus has spread in Brazil, the country has experienced the second-highest number of infections and deaths of any nation in the world, behind only the United States. In its jails and prisons, some inmates are preëmptively writing goodbye letters to their families.
“What we are trying to avoid is a massacre,” Luciana Zaffalon, a Brazilian criminal-justice-reform advocate, told me. Zaffalon leads the Brazilian Platform for Drug Policy, one of several groups pressing judges to release vulnerable prisoners. In 2006, a law passed that allowed leniency toward users and instituted harsher measures on dealers. In response, prosecutors and judges shifted to charging people with small amounts of cocaine or crack as dealers, which carry sentences of between five and fifteen years. Advocates for criminal-justice reform say that judges also began charging poor, often Black women as dealers, because few of them can afford costly private defense lawyers and are therefore easier to convict than wealthy defendants. As a result, between 2000 and 2016, the population of women in prison rose nearly seven hundred per cent, to roughly forty-four thousand inmates. Zaffalon, who is the former ombudsman general of São Paulo state’s public defender’s office, blamed the government’s resistance to releasing people on a tough-on-crime mentality among judges which has disproportionately affected poor Black and brown people. “Almost all criminal cases are from Black and poor people who don’t have money to hire a private lawyer to appeal their cases,” she said.
Corruption has long plagued Brazil’s court system. Most of the judiciary budget goes to the salaries of judges, many of whom are older, white men who graduated from the country’s élite universities. The Justa Project, an organization fighting for increased judicial transparency, found that a hundred per cent of those who become judges end up in the top 0.08-per-cent wealthiest segment of the population, which the group contends is a clear sign of systemic racism and corruption.
Since March, a visitation ban at prisons has prevented families from bringing food to the incarcerated—a common practice in a country where many inmates, owing to the gross underfunding of the prison system, are underfed. Andrelina Amélia Ferreira, who leads the movement Mães do Cárcere (Mothers of the Incarcerated), told me that she has heard stories of inmates eating toothpaste out of desperation and hunger. “Even if they get sick,” Ferreira said, “it is their right to die with their family and not alone in prison.” For the past eighteen years, Ferreira has used her home as her headquarters, and counselled twenty to thirty women a day there. She told me she fears for the lives of prisoners in a way that she never has before. “I am a woman who grew up in a simple community, inside the periphery, and I can say that I have never been so afraid as I am right now,” she told me. “We do not know who will stay alive, who won’t.”
On Tuesday, after mocking the risk of coronavirus infection for months, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro announced that he had tested positive for the virus. Since the arrival of the pandemic in Brazil, Bolsonaro has single-handedly created chaos: he has belittled its severity, despite overwhelming evidence of its danger; publicly defied social-isolation measures by walking among crowds and shaking hands, and encouraging others to do so; fought with and fired a health minister, and undermined the efforts of the rest of the country’s leaders. Asked about the rising number of cases in São Paulo, in an interview on March 27th, Bolsonaro replied, “I’m sorry—some people will die. They will die. That’s life. You can’t stop a car factory because of traffic deaths.”
As infection rates have risen in Brazil, a clearer picture has emerged of whose lives the President apparently deems disposable. In the beginning of the outbreak, the largest number of cases were in wealthy neighborhoods—the only places with access to tests. Over time, workers at the Vila Formosa necropolis, the largest cemetery in Latin America, noticed an acceleration in deaths among people on the peripheries of the city. Now the rate in favelas and peripheries is officially ten times higher than the average in the rest of the country. More than half of Brazil’s cases are in its southeastern region, where roughly ten million people live in homes not connected to sewerage networks, and about seven million have no access to running water. The inequality in Brazil’s health system is extreme, as well. Sixty per cent of the I.C.U. beds in the state of São Paulo are in three of its wealthiest regions, and only twenty-five per cent of the population nationally has private health insurance or can afford it. The resulting disparity by race in coronavirus-related death rates is glaring: Blacks in São Paulo are sixty-two per cent more likely to die from COVID-19 than whites.
Raquel Rolnik, a professor of urban planning at the University of São Paulo and a former U.N. special rapporteur on adequate housing, told me that the impact of the pandemic has been exacerbated because “the virus arrived to a dismantled country.” Since the nineteen-sixties, the cost of housing in Brazil has been beyond the means of the average worker. “The mantra should be ‘stay home,’ ” Rolnik said, but, “in the case of Brazil, in order to stay home, you have to have a home to begin with.” When he took office, Bolsonaro disbanded the Ministry of Cities, which had invested seven hundred and eighty billion reals in housing over a decade, much of it public housing for low-income Brazilians. “Now it is wilderness again,” Rolnik said.
“It is complex, because the President is walking in the streets denying the disease and sneezing on people and holding hands,” Ferreira told me. “So, for the people living in the favelas, it gives the message to do the same thing.” São Paulo’s governor, João Doria, told the Associated Press, “We’re fighting against the coronavirus and against the Bolsonaro-virus.”
Doria and his counterpart in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Wilson Witzel, have been lauded for standing up to Bolsonaro on the coronavirus, but they have been criticized for standing idly by as police have killed hundreds of Black and poor people. Rio saw a twenty-three-per-cent increase in police-involved killings during the first five months of 2019, and recent research from the Institute for Applied Economic Research shows that between 2007 and 2017 the murder of Black people in Brazil increased ten times faster than the rest of the population. In São Paulo, killings by military police are increasing, according to Globo, a leading Brazilian news organization, despite a decrease in the crime rate associated with the pandemic. Witzel’s devastating policing policy in Rio, which authorizes officers to fire rockets into communities from helicopters, killed about eighteen hundred people last year, the largest number on record in the state.
Past pandemics, such as the 1918 flu, also saw a lack of state aid to help poor and Black people. What is unique in Brazil’s history, though, is “having a President who is against science,” Lilia Schwarcz, a Brazilian historian and Princeton University professor, told me, citing the belief among Bolsonaro’s inner circle that the earth is flat. Bolsonaro’s reluctance to push for isolation and his willingness to let the vulnerable die, Rolnik added, is emblematic of his larger, “absolutely pro-death philosophy and practice of necropolitics,” a reference to the Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe, who argued that states affirm their sovereignty by imposing pain and death on populations considered the other.