“…it is mid May and I am noticing my feelings are turning much darker than before. When I venture out for quick trips for groceries and supplies, I see masked people everywhere, but I can no longer see smiles anymore. I so miss that. (I have occasionally seen some unmasked people and I want to scream at them to get a mask!!)…”
“As the shelter-in-place orders were issued across most of the US, and the dire news about shortages of PPE and ventilators started hitting mainstream media, many of my designer and engineer friends tried to put their professional skills to work to try and solve these problems. Some of my coworkers started designing face shields and face masks, teaming up with local manufacturers to help fight the shortage…”
“After two months sequestered at home in California, we packed up the family and drove to a rented house near Zion National Park in Utah. Here, restaurants and bars are open, but mostly empty for lack of tourists…”
“…I was promoted from a truck driver to a truck dispatcher in 2017, so my wages allow me to continue having a steady income with this new 40-hour work week. However, for my coworkers, I can’t say the same. Fellow truck drivers are really stressed since most of their steady income came from 20 hours of overtime we all worked. But now with limits to 40 hours a week, it’s just not enough…”
“…a few weeks into quarantine, I went down to the kitchen for a late night snack, and saw my dad sitting there alone. He just started apologizing for how I couldn’t be in college and how everything was so upside down. Then he said, ‘After communism, I never thought I’d see the day we’d have to wait in lines to go to the grocery store with empty shelves again.’”
“我回国之后疫情就开始严重起来，我们连续好几天没有出门，买了很多口罩和食物还有酒精。[…] 大家都非常团结，希望这次疫情能早日结束。有很多人开始募捐，帮助医院治疗，还有人开始做视频来振奋大家，等等。[…] 希望疫情过后，人与人之间能够更包容，各国关系也能更好。感谢医护人员以及在疫情中帮忙的所有人。”
“隔离期间我每天都会在小区附近走trails，也开始在跑步机上练习跑步，参加zoom 瑜伽课和其他娱乐活动。WeChat 朋友圈有各种group chat, 从团购，读书，瑜伽到烹调和对疫情的讨论比平日里热闹多了。”
Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.
Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA),
Stanford University
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