Thank you so much for posting the wonderful and fascinating accounts of how people from all over are experiencing/enduring this misery. Both my husband and I read them with interest, some of them so sorrowful, all so human.

We live in British Columbia, and feel very blessed indeed to be in a small town which has yet to see a confirmed case. It’s been wonderful to see how responsible people are being, careful of one another’s well being and their own. Social distancing like champions. So far, so good. We pray a Rosary every night for this to end, for all those who have been afflicted, and especially for the safety of all the health care workers who continue to be so selfless. In this town, there are hearts in many windows and on lawns and doors, saying thank you to them all. Our son in Vancouver has said that every night at 7 pm, whole neighbourhoods turn out onto balconies to bang pots and pans in gratitude. A joyful cacophony.

I wanted to send you an article from the Times of Israel about violence towards health care workers who entered an Ultra-Orthodox neighbourhood to test for the virus, and call your attention to a comment mentioning “pikuach nefesh” – a new term to me, and one that I think could apply to those foolishly stubborn Christians who continue to insist on gathering in large groups to worship. According to Wikipedia, “Pikuach nefesh describes the principle in Jewish law that the preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule. When the life of a specific person is in danger, almost any mitzvah lo ta’aseh of the Torah becomes inapplicable.”

It looks like Toronto has escaped the disasters we see down in New York. Most people I know are patiently waiting at home, although I have heard of plenty of younger people gathering out at the parks. The mayor, John Tory, has cancelled all public events, including the Pride Parade, until July, meaning that our first day out en masse might be Canada Day. I’m sure we will celebrate, as much as is possible, given the lost months of employment. No summer festivals, no revenue for the tourism industry. Pride tends to be pretty noxious (check out the open drug use, nudity, anarchic politics) but it, and many other festivals, brought in millions. That’s gone this year. We’re all going to hurt. But more of us will be alive to help with the recovery than if we continued to crowd the subway.

Ontario’s premier and former alleged drug dealer Doug Ford (older brother of the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford, he of the “I’ve got more than enough to eat at home” fame), has surprised almost everybody, including his closest supporters, by his handling of this pandemic. Unlike the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who likes to think of himself as polished and professional, Ford has been angry, scared, flustered—and totally authentic. He made public the province’s projections that warn us that upwards of 15,000 people could die over the next two years, assuming that we keep up social distancing. It’s shocking. A hard truth we needed to hear. Meanwhile, Trudeau used the crisis to try to give his minority government unfettered access to spending powers until the end of 2021. Parliament said no, thankfully. It goes to show what people want in a crisis: reality and honesty. A slob who reads badly off a teleprompter but shows genuine concern goes farther in a pandemic than a guy who probably formed a committee to decide whether a beard might help his brand.

Nothing happens much these days. Conversations with friends repeat themselves. When are your groceries arriving? What’re you making for dinner? Life in my little apartment is surprisingly sweet. Our baby demands all our time, but we love to give it to him. We cried watching the Queen’s message. We stay home to protect others, like our parents. It’s our civic duty, as the Queen reminded us. It’s boring and the financial effects hurt, but it’s not like we’re being bombed.

I watch the news more than ever. I am shocked at the appallingly poor quality of reporting I see across the spectrum. So partisan, so breathless, so hard to ignore.

I dream about the day when we can leave our house. I want to attend Easter celebrations. I fear losing the church. I worry about my country (and yours) and how we might become comfortable with suspension of rights. Yes, we need to accept short-term limitations to protect the vulnerable. But we should remain wary about how malign actors will use this mess to assert agendas. God knows they will–and are. Protecting ourselves will entail untangling the global supply chain from the most malign actor on the world stage right now (next to Daesh, of course).

If the pandemic strengthens home, then good will have come out of it.

This Easter, the sunrise service at Home Moravian church in Winston-Salem, NC will not be open to the public.  This year would have been the 248th year for the gathering of Christians across Winston-Salem and even other parts of NC.  Winston-Salem was home to RJ Reynolds Tobacco and the birthplace of two famous cigarette names:  Winston, and Salem.  But long before that Salem was the settlement of German-speaking Moravians.  Near the church is the community cemetery called God’s Acre, an old name for Christian cemeteries.  Salem was the southern headquarters for the Moravian church, the northern headquarters being Bethlehem, PA.  Down here Salem is called Easter Town due to sunrise service done in the Moravian fashion.  Usually there will be families who come to God’s Acre to clean headstones and put out fresh flowers.  It’s an inspiring visual to the hope we have in Christ.  Saturday night the brass bands will fan out across the town to play music to awaken others for the sunrise service.  But not this year.

Sunday would usually see several thousand (depending on weather) who would mass early in the morning at the doors of Home Moravian church.  But not this year.

This year due to the virus, the church will celebrate Easter without the public participating.  The service can draw thousands for the event.  It starts at the doors of the church with a loud proclamation of “The Lord is Risen!” followed by those attending responding “The Lord is Risen indeed!”  After the first section of the service, those attending then walk to the cemetery while the brass bands play traditional Moravian hymns.  The rest of the service is in God’s Acre where we would stand in rows between the headstones to await the sunrise.

I was introduced to this tradition back in the 80’s when I lived there.  Many Christians from different denominations would go to the sunrise service in “Old Salem” and then go to their own church for church again.  I am sure many people will also miss the best hot cross buns in the USA produced at Winkler’s bakery and still made by hand.  We will make our own at home, but they are not the same.

It is hard to believe that the pandemic has shut down this tradition, but it has not shut down the hope we have in the risen Lord.  We plan to watch via the church website and follow the liturgy, before watching our own church service.  What a world.

I write from the ‘end of the world’, Papua New Guinea, to be exact.  With one imported case of COVID 2019 discovered in March, we have been on two-week national lockdown, which ends on Thursday. Given another case discovered yesterday, the Government’s earlier decision to extend an overall State of Emergency until June seems wise. At the University where I teach and live, we have been on enforced break, just staying at home (on campus) or individually working from the office. There is discussion of teaching online if we go back to classes on 27 April as presently planned, but that is still to be logistically worked out.

Ironically, it is a good time to be physically at the ‘end of the world’. Yet, I find myself thinking of Stanley Kramer’s 1959 movie, “On the Beach”, which posits a world after a nuclear war between the US and the USSR, with Australia [and New Zealand] temporarily spared from the atomic fallout (for six months).People know it (and their end) is coming, and react in varied fallen human ways. While I began the lockdown on campus in a reasonable mood, I find the passing days more difficult to bear, with only two friends coming to see me regularly (albeit briefly). I don’t feel free to attend the local Anglican Church due to lockdown, and I worry more and more about friends and colleagues in Europe (particularly in Italy and Romania) and my family at home in the USA (as the general situation seems to be worsening there with each passing day). While the emotional part of me would want to be with them, I intellectually realize I am better off here, with few cases of COVID (at present) – and a Government that takes it seriously even so – as well as a salaried job and house. But I feel adrift and stressed even so, only getting some joy by looking at Instragram pictures of Truman and Buddy Buttigieg being happy dogs in South Bend and playing too much retro-cocktail stereophonic music from a more idealistic era.

As I had mentioned before, I am an international academic who has built his post-1989 career on the post-Cold War ‘New World Order’, depending upon the networks and connecting infrastructures (cheap, reliable air transport) and (for me) reasonably open borders that allows me to have ongoing working relations in Europe and Papua New Guinea (in June, I normally would be attending conferences and PhD examinations in Europe and beyond, but that is not likely now). Nearing retirement, I had been expecting to build a sustainable bridge between these places and roles. All the current global uncertainty now causes me to wonder if it all will be (or not).

Thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts. God Bless you and your family, and the Birra Nursias look fabulous!

Papua New Guinea! Boy oh boy, we have readers everywhere. Thanks to all who have written, and who continue to write. Keep ’em coming to me at rod — at — amconmag — dot — com, and don’t forget to say from where you write, and to put PANDEMIC DIARIES in the subject line.

By the way, a sad note to report. Back on March 26, in Pandemic Diaries 11, a reader from Oklahoma mentioned this in her diary: