A new mother returning to her job as a nurse after maternity leave. A student battling alcohol and drug addiction. A couple laying the foundations for a life together in their new home. This is how coronavirus changed their lives.
By Deborah Acosta Close Deborah Acosta , Alvin Chang Close Alvin Chang , Nico Gendron Close Nico Gendron , Alex Janin Close Alex Janin , J.J. McCorvey Close J.J. McCorvey , and Allison Pohle Close Allison Pohle Updated May 24, 2020 2:48 pm ET The New Year During the first two months of 2020, Herine Baron was in a pretty constant state of bliss, driving around Miami accompanied by the pulsating rhythms of Caribbean party music.
Also in New York City, Ngoc Cindy Pham, 32, had by early this year finally settled into her life as a Brooklyn College business professor. She had grown up in Vietnam, where her parents worked long hours to send her to graduate school in the U.S. Here, she had regularly devoted 18 hours a day to her master’s and doctoral studies, ignoring her personal life for fear she would squander her parents’ sacrifices.
At the start of 2020, Americans were ushering in a new decade and what was shaping up to be a dynamic presidential election year. China was already reporting patients afflicted by a mysterious disease, but in the United States, many young people were writing New Year’s resolutions and setting what seemed to be reasonable goals.
In some ways, heading into a protracted shutdown, this generation was better equipped. They are more accustomed to navigating the world through technology, to communicating primarily on devices, and to working from home. .exjnhC{margin:0 auto;padding-bottom:100%;}/*!sc*/data-styled.g4[id="Video__Player-ppsj9y-0"]{content:"exjnhC,"}/*!sc*/.doTPLG{color:rgb;font-size:15px;font-family:Retina;font-weight:300;-webkit-letter-spacing:0px;-moz-letter-spacing:0px;-ms-letter-spacing:0px;letter-spacing:0px;line-height:26px;color:#222;padding:8px 0;border-color:#666;border-style:solid;border-width:1px 0 1px 0;margin-bottom:15px;}/*!sc*/data-styled.
On March 12, Parker McAllister, the bassist, ventured to the Lower East Side of Manhattan to check out the band with which he’d soon be touring the Bahamas. Italy’s strict lockdown had already derailed his European tour, but, he thought, would getting stuck in an island paradise be the worst thing in the world? He wouldn’t find out. The next day, the band leader called off the trip, and on March 17, McAllister’s manager sent an email: “Prepare for all of April to be canceled.
That day, he felt a bit off, but it had been a long work week. The next morning, though, he woke up feeling awful. Neither Morris nor his girlfriend, Kara Frey, were shocked. They knew he was likely exposed to Covid-19 patients at work. But they weren’t worried. He was young, healthy and athletic — a competitive recreational hockey player. They anticipated a few days of misery with cold symptoms.
On March 17, she texted her friend Maria Hernandez: “I think it’s fascinating that the world is cleaning up by slowly getting rid of us. Mother Nature is like, nah, y’all, it’s getting too hot on me. Time to take care of some of y’all.” On March 30, she posted an update on Facebook: “I want to thank everyone for your kind words, prayers and encouragements,” she wrote from her hospital bed. “I plan to keep fighting this as best as I can.”
Economically, the pandemic shutdowns hit young Americans hardest. From March to April, unemployment for Americans under 25 tripled. More than half of Americans younger than 30 lost their job or took a pay cut, compared with 40 percent overall, according to a report by the Pew Research Center. Young people dominate certain sectors that have been most profoundly affected — like the food-service industry and the gig economy.
During her hospitalization, separated from her baby, Baron pumped, and dumped, her breast milk, fearful of passing on the virus to him. On the day she was discharged, she learned that her son Malcolm had tested positive for Covid-19. This made her sad, she said, especially because doctors had advised her to remain in isolation at home and she wouldn’t be able to nurse her own child back to health. Malcolm remained in the care of his grandmother for another couple of weeks.
“I always looked at nurses as heroes, that’s one of the reasons that I became a nurse,” she said. “But I feel like we’re getting recognized more.” Staying home, and home, and home, with her family was challenging for Mahum Khalid at such an early point in her recovery. Before the lockdown, she depended on her hotel job to distract her during the day. At night, Narcotics Anonymous meetings kept her both psychologically and socially tethered; they’d spill over into long post-meeting diner hangouts every Friday evening.
Soon, some checks for previous performances arrived, but, with the world now awash in out-of-work musicians, he knew he would need to expand his career beyond the plucking of his bass strings. He lugged his amplifier from his car into his parents’ parlor, so that he could produce something like studio sound. He got some production work, started creating samples for a music-production platform called Splice, and taught himself video-editing.
“It’s really sad to not have anyone to talk to,” she said. “I doubt myself — why have I been working for such a long time? What’s the goal? What is happiness? I’ve tried to redefine what happiness means. Is it a successful career or family?” Finally, on a sunny Sunday morning, came a series of loud thuds on her bedroom window. Frey emerged from a deep sleep to find Morris’ stepmother standing outside with a message: Nate is trying to reach you. She rolled over and saw the missed calls on her phone. The night before, Morris had woken up and pulled out his breathing tube himself. When they spoke for the first time in three weeks, he asked if Frey had contracted Covid-19 while he was in a coma. She said no.
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