The noise from the sirens is nearly constant now. The losses continue to mount—human, economic—and the stories of those who have died fill our media streams. I find more soothing the days when skies are overcast and gray, when the weather more closely aligns with the mood here. Sunlight feels like an affront, a callous lack of acknowledgement of what’s happening and of all that has changed.
Outdoors, more and more people are wearing masks and facial coverings, despite confusing advice from public health officials and the Centers for Disease Control. The adoption of masks, surely overdue in NYC, has required a shift in thinking about risk. We wear them not only to protect ourselves from others, but also, and more significantly, to protect others from ourselves. Researchers are reporting that up to 25% of those infected may be asymptomatic, and even those who eventually develop symptoms are probably contagious for several days beforehand. The idea of an asymptomatic carrier marks everyone as potentially dangerous. We can be a threat without even knowing it.
The coronavirus itself is invisible without an electron microscope, but its effects are evident in the destruction it wreaks. Mapping COVID-19 infections is one way to make the virus’s networks detectable. On the website of the New York Times, one can find maps showing worldwide infections, infections in the US, and infections by NYC neighborhood. This can be reassuring to those in areas with fewer infections, or alarming if one lives in an area that’s been hard-hit. A geographical visualization of this kind shows our interconnectedness, but it also highlights hubs of global travel, of high population density, and of areas where poverty and a lack of public health infrastructure put people at greater risk.
At this point, many of us who haven’t already had and recovered from COVID-19 may be asymptomatic carriers of a microbe undetectable by the naked eye. As such, we must visualize the virus’s pathways of transmission and then act to deprive it of them, by decreasing human contact as much as possible.