On my run in the park this afternoon, I noticed that the cherry trees have begun to bloom. Their small, pale pink flowers look jarringly out of place against the last of the fall foliage on the loftier elm and linden trees, where yellowed leaves cling tenuously to branches that will soon be bare. In a different year, I would be troubled by such a clear symptom of climate change but also relatively sure that, after a few weeks of cooler weather, the trees would realize it was winter and behave accordingly. This year, however, it feels entirely fitting to see trees senselessly flowering in December, yet another sign of how deeply our customary rhythms, and those of the world around us, have been dislodged.
The summer and fall in NYC were luminous, week after week of mild, temperate days stretching into gentle evenings. We learned to live outdoors, sharing space with one another in ball fields, on stoops and sidewalks; in the park, I saw jazz performances, karaoke parties, cocktail hours, yard sales, and a wedding. Indoor dining resumed, albeit at reduced capacity. My gym reopened. We wore masks, we physically distanced, and the number of new infections remained low. We began to dare to believe that after our dark, horrifying spring, perhaps—perhaps—we had figured out a way to endure.
And then. An autumn chill started to creep into the edges of the afternoons and the daylight grew scarcer—gradually at first, and then all at once. We retreated indoors, cranked up the baseboard heaters, traded t-shirts for wool sweaters. And as public health experts had been warning us for months, the numbers began to tick up. At the beginning of September, NYC was averaging fewer than 300 new cases per day; now, the number is over 2,500. Other areas of the country are faring even worse, with hospitals at capacity and health care workers burned out and demoralized after so many months.
Elsewhere in the world (New Zealand, some Asian countries, parts of Australia), aspects of pre-pandemic life have returned; children are back in school, sporting events have resumed, and restaurants are open for business. In the US today, we logged over 200,000 infections, a new record. The virus is raging through every community and every county. Yet because of the complete abdication of responsibility by this administration, we still have no coordinated response, no consistent public health messaging, no national leadership. There are still places in the country where you can walk into a grocery store without a mask on, a colossal failure not just of sound public health strategy, but of political will. Vaccines are days away from approval, with the first inoculations expected later this month. Things will get better, at least in the US. But before they do, they will get much, much worse. People will continue to get sick, and many will die. And we will continue to confront shattering, unnecessary loss while we spend the next few months as we spent the last few: alone.