photo essay during pandemic

• HISTORY & CULTURE
• CORONAVIRUS COVERAGE

Photos show the first 2 years of a world transformed by COVID-19

Our photographers bore witness to the ways the world has coped—and changed—since the pandemic began.

Two years ago this month, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization formally declared a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus . And as COVID-19 spread across the globe, humanity had little time to adapt to lockdowns and staggering losses.

Nearly six million people have died from the disease so far, a death toll that experts say barely scratches the surface of the pandemic’s true harm. Hospitals and health care workers have been pushed to the brink, debates over masking have tested our bonds, and millions of grieving families will never truly return to life as normal—if it’s even possible to go back to a time when “social distancing” was an alien concept.  

Over past two years, National Geographic has documented how the world has coped with COVID-19 through the lenses of more than 80 photographers in dozens of countries. In the frightening early days, Cédric Gerbehave’s haunting image of Belgian nurses revealed the trauma of hospitals overrun by a disease that scientists didn’t yet understand. Tamara Merino confronted the overwhelming isolation of confinement during lockdown in Chile. And Muhammad Fadli took us to the gravesite of one of the many COVID-19 victims whose bodies filled up an Indonesian cemetery.

Our photographers have also shown us how the world adapted to these challenges. Families found new ways to connect when social distancing kept us from our loved ones, and new ways to grieve when we couldn’t hold funerals. Schools from Haiti to South Korea were able to safely reopen with mask mandates, smaller classes, and exams taken outdoors. And the 2021 graduating class of Howard University found a joyous way to celebrate commencement outdoors: by dancing down the streets of Washington, D.C.

Now, as we enter the pandemic’s third year, scientists warn that it isn’t over yet. More than 10 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered globally—but that isn’t enough to quell the danger of future surges and even more deadly variants . Still, there’s reason to hope that we’ll finally find our way toward a new normal.

Many of these images were made with the support of the National Geographic Society's   COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Journalists , which launched in March 2020 and funded more than 324 projects in over 70 countries. These projects revealed the social, emotional, economic, educational, and equity issues threatening livelihoods all over the world.

Physician Gerald Foret dons a full-face respirator mask before seeing COVID-19 patients at Our Lady of the Angels Hospital in Bogalusa, Louisiana. The mask was donated to the hospital when it was running low on disposable N95 masks. In the early months of the pandemic, health-care systems faced severe shortages of personal protective equipment such as face masks and disposable gloves—putting front-line workers like Foret in further jeopardy.

A baby is born at the only maternity hospital in Dagestan, Russia. Located on the southernmost tip of Russia along the Caspian Sea, the Muslim-majority republic suffered a catastrophic surge of coronavirus deaths in the spring of 2020. The losses in Dagestan raised questions about whether the Russian government was obscuring the pandemic’s true death toll.

Alfonso Sellano, age 64, battles COVID-19 while his wife and a nurse tend to him in Espinar, Peru. As of March 2022, the country has the highest COVID-19 death rate in the world , which experts say can be attributed to the country’s weak health-care system and pervasive social inequalities that make it difficult for marginalized people to protect themselves from the virus. For instance, many had to continue commuting to work even during lockdown in order to provide for their families.

Hours of work in a protective mask leave a transient scar down the face of Yves Bouckaert, the chief intensive care unit physician at Tivoli Hospital in La Louvière, Belgium.  

Ghislaine, a nurse in the geriatric ward at the same hospital, poses for a portrait with a tear running down her cheek. These photos were taken during the third wave of COVID-19, which triggered a new round of lockdowns in March 2021.

In Mons, Belgium, nursing colleagues take brief refuge in a shift break and each other’s company. Like medical facilities around the world, Belgian hospitals were initially overwhelmed by the rush of patients with a virulent new disease. These nurses, pulled from their standard duties, were thrown into full-time COVID-19 work—reinforcement troops for a long, exhausting battle.

COVID-19 has posed a particularly grave threat to Africa’s informal urban settlements —communities with high poverty rates where millions of people live in close quarters and often do not have access to clean water or toilets. In Nairobi, Kenya, residents of the Kibera informal settlement have their temperature checked by community health workers at a station set up by Shining Hope for Communities on March 26, 2020.

Home health-care worker Delores Jetton bathes her client Jean Robbins in a sunlit bedroom. “She is slow and prayerful as she bathes each person, washing with warm water and a touch that is so appreciated by these elders, who often face pain and fear at the end of life,” writes photographer Lynn Johnson. “As the bath progresses, one can see Robbins literally surrender to the touch.”  

Even with the availability of effective vaccines, people over 65 remain at high risk of dying from COVID-19 . Many have been told to stay home rather than visit health clinics in person—causing a significant rise in demand for home health workers, who have often found themselves stretched to exhaustion in these past two years.

The mummified body of a COVID-19 victim lies on the patient’s deathbed awaiting a bodybag in Jakarta, Indonesia. It took two nurses about an hour to wrap the patient in plastic—a measure intended to keep the coronavirus from spreading. Indonesians were shocked when they saw this image, which humanizes the losses of COVID-19 and horror of death from the disease.

“It’s clear that the power of this image has galvanized discussion about coronavirus,” photographer Joshua Irwandi told National Geographic in July 2020 . “We have to recognize the sacrifice, and the risk, that the doctors and nurses are making.”

At the Rayer Bazar graveyard in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Farid conducts the janazah , an Islamic funeral prayer, for a COVID-19 victim and his relatives attending the burial. Bangladesh designated the cemetery as its official burial place for COVID-19 victims in April 2020.

Defying Peruvian government protocols, the Shipibo-Konibo have organized illegal mourning and funerals during the pandemic to honor their dead as their tradition dictates. At the funeral of Milena Canayo, who died in July 2020 with symptoms of COVID-19, her 9-year-old daughter lights a candle before taking refuge at home. Shipibo-Konibo people live in the Amazon rainforest of Peru, including in cities like Pucallpa where Milena's funeral was held. But she was not treated at the local hospital—Ronald Suarez, head of the organization Coshikox, says the health and welfare of Indigenous people is always the last to be considered.  

Workers from a funeral home in Huancavelica wait until the end of a service to move a coffin into a grave at a city cemetery in April 2021. Much like the rest of the country, this city in central Peru has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic.

After keeping their social distance during the New York City funeral of Annie Lewis, family members draw together around the casket to say a final goodbye. In the United States, COVID-19 has been particularly devastating for low-income communities of color. As photographer Ruddy Roye told National Geographic , “The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the divisions in our city.”

Relatives visit a loved one’s fresh grave at Rorotan Public Cemetery in Cilincing, North Jakarta, Indonesia, on July 21, 2021. The cemetery, which is dedicated to COVID-19 victims, opened in March. Even though it can hold up to 7,200 people, the cemetery filled up fast during the surge in cases caused by the Delta variant—which made Indonesia an epicenter of the pandemic. In response, Jakarta's government planned to add more land to the 25-hectare cemetery.

Elaine Fields, with her daughter Etana Fields-Purdy, stand close to her husband's gravesite at the Elmwood Cemetary in Detroit, on June 14, 2020. Eddie Fields, a retired General Motors plant worker, had died from COVID-19 complications in April. "It's hard because we haven't been able to mourn,” Elaine told photographer Wayne Lawrence . “We weren't able to be with him or have a funeral, so our mourning has been stunted."

Detroit journalist Biba Adams stands for a portrait at her home with daughter Maria Williams and granddaughter Gia Williams in Detroit on June 10, 2020. Adams lost her mother, grandmother, and aunt to the coronavirus. “To lose one’s mother is one thing,” Adams said in late July 2020 , when U.S. pandemic death totals were pushing past 150,000. “To lose her as one of 150,000 people is even more painful. I don’t want her to just be a number. She had dreams, things she still wanted to do. She was a person. And I am going to lift her name up.”

Family members place flowers atop the coffin of Eric Hallett, 76, just before a hearse carries his body to the crematorium in Crewkerne, England, on May 4, 2020. Pandemic safety protocols forced the crematorium to limit the number of mourners at each funeral. Instead, Hallett’s loved ones lined the streets to wave goodbye.

Sisters Dana Cobbs and Darcey Cobbs-Lomax lost both their father and paternal grandmother to COVID-19 in April 2020. Evelyn Cobbs was rushed to the hospital in ambulances just one day after her son Morgan—and the two died within a week of one another. Photographer Celeste Sloman took this virtual portrait of the sisters, who had to say goodbye to their loved ones from a distance due to the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.

White flags planted on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. represent each of the American lives lost to COVID-19. When the art installation opened in September 2021, the country had surpassed 670,000 deaths. For more than 30 hours, photographer and National Geographic Explorer Stephen Wilkes watched people move through the sea of white flags , capturing individuals as they grappled with the enormity of loss. Wilkes took 4,882 photographs of the exhibit, then blended them into a single composite image as part of his Day to Night series.

Kristiana Nicole Bell attends a candlelight vigil at St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic Church in Foley, Alabama, where she was baptized later that evening. The service, held the night before Easter Sunday, was led in both English and Spanish by Father Paul Zohgby. He decided about eight years ago that it was important to learn Spanish so he could welcome and minister to the community’s growing Latino immigrant population. Zohgby told photographer Natalie Keyssar that he was elated to rejoin his congregation in person after spending eight days in the hospital with severe COVID-19.

Quarantined for two weeks after traveling from Belgium to Shanghai, Justin Jin reads out his temperature to a medic on the other side of his closed hotel door. The picture was taken through the door’s peephole. Jin made the arduous journey to see his father, who just had surgery.

Photographer Ian Teh spends much of his working life on the road—so the pandemic allowed him to stay home with his wife, Chloe Lim, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “My partner and I are lucky that both our families are safe,” he says. “The pandemic has been an opportunity for us to connect with our loved ones, virtually.” He took this self-portrait of the couple in a favorite spot in their apartment, looking out on nearby houses and greenery. “It’s peaceful,” he says.

Heavy rain falls on Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 27, 2020. Argentina entered a full lockdown on March 20 that endured more than four months. Feeling trapped, and still recovering from a miscarriage, photographer Sarah Pabst picked up her camera to document her pandemic experiences. The result: Morning Song , a project that uses photography to explore motherhood, love, and loss, and our connection with nature.

Greta Tanini and Cristoforo Lippi decided to take advantage of Italy's quarantine lockdown—to regard their enforced time together as a new exploration of their relationship. They divided up domestic tasks—including shopping, cleaning, and tidying up—and limited their social interaction to chatting with neighbors at a safe distance so as not to spread the virus.

The Apollo Theater has been a Harlem landmark since the 1930s, when it helped propel music genres such as jazz, R & B, and the blues into the American mainstream. The Apollo was one of New York City’s many historic entertainment venues that closed in early 2020 to stem the spread of COVID-19. It remained shuttered for a year and a half—and finally returned, to much excitement, in August 2021.

In spring 2020, sculptor Antonio Canova's The Three Graces (1812-1817) stand alone in the rotunda of Milan’s Galleria d’Italia. COVID-19 lockdowns forced museums across Europe to close their door for months— sparking fears that the loss of revenue might keep them permanently closed. By June, however, some museums began to reopen with limited numbers of visitors, temperature checks, and socially distant experiences.

Photographer Mariceu Erthal took this self-portrait in July 2020 during her first visit to the sea after being confined at home by COVID-19 lockdowns. She says the experience “brought me peace of mind and allowed me to observe the sadness and anxieties I had inside.”

Photographer Bethany Mollenkof found out she was pregnant three months before COVID-19 shut down swaths of the United States. She began to document her own experiences during quarantine in Los Angeles—from her first ultrasound, which her husband had to watch from the parking lot over FaceTime, to childbirth. Although Mollenkof had hoped for a natural birth, she decided to deliver in a hospital in case of complications—which proved the right choice. After her water broke, her contractions did not start, and ultimately labor was induced to keep the baby safe.

  “I thought about my friends, my community, and what it would feel like to become new parents in isolation—to not have people around us to help, people who years later could tell our daughter that they’d held her when she was a few days old,” Mollenkof wrote in a photo essay for National Geographic . “But I also thought about women throughout history, women who have survived wars, pandemics, miscarriages. Their resilience guided me.”

Exhausted after giving birth to her daughter, Suzette, Kim Bonsignore lies in the birthing pool in her living room on April 20, 2020, in New York City. Instead of having her baby in the hospital as planned, the Bonsignores decided to have their second child at home when they learned that family members would not be allowed in the delivery room because of COVID-19 restrictions.

In Moscow, a nurse wearing a hazmat suit holds a bouquet of flowers for at Hospital No. 52 on March 9, 2020—or Victory Day. Russia’s most important national holiday commemorates the surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945. Although celebrations were more subdued because of the pandemic, the hospital arranged a small tribute for veterans and their families under treatment.

Photographer Tamara Merino took this self-portrait with her son Ikal on the first day of total isolation in Santiago, Chile. “The confinement feels stronger and more overwhelming when someone imposes it on you,” she wrote. “When we have freedom over our actions, and we decide to stay home, we still feel free. Not anymore.”

Image of customers seen through a thermal scanner at the entrance of a supermarket in Ushuaia, the capital of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The vast majority of food on the island is imported, and shopping is centralized in big supermarket chains—creating a challenge for social distancing. During lockdown, thermal scanners were placed in the supermarkets to take the temperature of incoming customers. Customers with elevated temperatures were sent home.

Girls form a socially distant queue to take a shower at a facility in Kibera, an informal settlement in Nairobi, Kenya. Most residents in the community do not have access to indoor plumbing, so a local organization provided free water to help prevent the spread of coronavirus by helping people maintain their personal hygiene.

An Istanbul city employee disinfects the streets of Beyoglu on April 14, 2020. Typically bustling with tourists intent on sampling its historic winehouses, museums, nightclubs and shops, the neighborhood fell quiet at the start of the pandemic. Many cities initially tried   to curb the spread of the coronavirus by spraying their walkways with disinfectant—a practice that the World Health Organization ultimately recommended against , as the chemicals were likely to harm people’s health.

Migrants climb onto a truck which will take them toward their village on the outskirts of Lucknow, India, on May 6, 2020. When the Indian government announced a nationwide lockdown on March 24, it requested that people stay put, wherever they were. But that created a shortage of food for the huge migrant population in cities—so, after much deliberation and implementation of new public safety measures, state governments coordinated efforts to transport the migrants to their homes on special trains.

Students resume in-person classes at Elementary School No. 1 in Jakarta, Indonesia. More than 600 schools across the city reopened on a limited basis in fall 2021, offering face-to-face classes three days a week with strict health protocols in place. Schools also restricted the number of students who could attend in person, with half of each class still learning from home via video conference. Nadiem Makarim, the Indonesian minister of education, pushed for a return to classrooms, telling parliament that COVID-19 lockdowns caused “learning losses that have permanent impacts.”

In a Pétion-Ville high school, a student distributes handmade masks to his classmates before classes begin. The pandemic disrupted education for children everywhere—but the crisis was particularly dire in Haiti, where students have also suffered gaps in their education as a result of social unrest and natural disasters. The Caribbean nation reopened many of its schools in August 2020 with public health measures like masking in place.

Aspiring insurance agents sit for their qualification exams at desks spread apart on a soccer field in South Korea on April 25, 2020. The Korea Life Insurance Association and the General Insurance Association of Korea were among the many public and private institutions that introduced socially distanced exams during the pandemic. It was a very windy day, but more than 18,000 people across Korea took the insurance agent exam—happy that they had resumed after a hiatus of more than two months.

Eighteen-year-old Stephen Onyango (center) teaches his brothers Collins and Gavan while their sister Genevieve Akinyi watches at their home in Kibera. They hadn't been to class since the Kenyan government closed all schools in the country in mid-March to curb the spread of COVID-19. Stephen told photographer Brian Otieno that his teacher suggested an app he could use to teach his siblings. “It's my responsibility to ensure that my brothers are at home studying now that coronavirus is here with us and we don't know when this will end,” he said. Kenya reopened schools in January 2021, even as the pandemic continued to spread.

Members of the Phi Beta Sigma fraternity gather for an impromptu step dance after Howard University's commencement ceremony in Washington, D.C., on May 8, 2021. Only undergraduate students were allowed to attend the outdoor, in-person ceremony held at the university’s stadium. Friends and family scattered around outside of the stadium instead.  

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“As I was bouncing around campus, I started to think about how much the students had been through the past year and how this particular moment must feel for them,” said photographer Jared Soares. “To be able to witness the students' jubilation was a huge privilege, and even more meaningful based on the circumstances that we as a community had to endure the past year and a half.”

Seoulites lounge on picnic mats in the grass at Ttukseom Hangang Park on a late summer weekend in 2021. Located under ring-shaped entry and exit ramps leading to a bridge and an expressway, the park is a popular gathering spot for young and old alike.

Nadia, one of the hosts of the talent quest TV show Afghan Star , interviews masked young women at a taping on February 18, 2021. As the Taliban moved to retake national control, Afghan Star ’s cast and crew came under serious threat—judges and participants had to stay at a safe house with armed security guards and blast walls until the end of the season. Kabul fell to the Taliban six months after this photograph was taken, leaving an uncertain future for Afghan women .

Berlin partygoers share a moment In a hallway of the Ritter Butzke, a venerable electronic music clubs, on August 28, 2021. Recently government-designated a German cultural institution, the Ritter Butzke—like other clubs with open air spaces— was approved last summer for public reopening . Some pandemic rules still apply: signs at the club urge patrons to wear masks and refrain from drinking on the dance floor.

Members of the Orquesta Sinfónica Gran Mariscal de Ayacucho play music from their new album, Sinfonía Desordenada (Disorderly Symphony), during an open-air performance on November 12, 2021 in Caracas, Venezuela. The album was recorded during the pandemic lockdown by 75 musicians who blended elements of classical music with Afro-Caribbean rhythms.

A boy flies his kite during lockdown in Amman, Jordan, in April 2020. For a few days in March, the government had imposed even tighter restrictions—shutting down nearly everything and instituting a 24-hour curfew backed up by tanks and army trucks, with no exceptions even to get food and medicine.  

Amman is built on hills, and from his kitchen, photographer Moises Saman could hear the echoes of citywide sirens, the kind used for air raid warnings. He stayed inside with his family until the curfews began to ease. Then he went to find the places where refugees live, including the neighborhood where this photograph was taken. Despite fears that their crowded settlements and neighborhoods would lead to uncontainable spread of COVID-19, Jordan's strict lockdown kept the pandemic at bay during its early months. But as lockdown measures eased, cases began to surge by the fall —a warning to all countries to remain vigilant.

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COVID-19 photo essay: We’re all in this together

About the author, department of global communications.

The United Nations Department of Global Communications (DGC) promotes global awareness and understanding of the work of the United Nations.

23 June 2020 – The COVID-19 pandemic has  demonstrated the interconnected nature of our world – and that no one is safe until everyone is safe.  Only by acting in solidarity can communities save lives and overcome the devastating socio-economic impacts of the virus.  In partnership with the United Nations, people around the world are showing acts of humanity, inspiring hope for a better future. 

Everyone can do something    

Rauf Salem, a volunteer, instructs children on the right way to wash their hands, in Sana'a, Yemen.  Simple measures, such as maintaining physical distance, washing hands frequently and wearing a mask are imperative if the fight against COVID-19 is to be won.  Photo: UNICEF/UNI341697

Creating hope

Venezuelan refugee Juan Batista Ramos, 69, plays guitar in front of a mural he painted at the Tancredo Neves temporary shelter in Boa Vista, Brazil to help lift COVID-19 quarantine blues.  “Now, everywhere you look you will see a landscape to remind us that there is beauty in the world,” he says.  Ramos is among the many artists around the world using the power of culture to inspire hope and solidarity during the pandemic.  Photo: UNHCR/Allana Ferreira

Inclusive solutions

Wendy Schellemans, an education assistant at the Royal Woluwe Institute in Brussels, models a transparent face mask designed to help the hard of hearing.  The United Nations and partners are working to ensure that responses to COVID-19 leave no one behind.  Photo courtesy of Royal Woluwe Institute

Humanity at its best

Maryna, a community worker at the Arts Centre for Children and Youth in Chasiv Yar village, Ukraine, makes face masks on a sewing machine donated by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and civil society partner, Proliska.  She is among the many people around the world who are voluntarily addressing the shortage of masks on the market. Photo: UNHCR/Artem Hetman

Keep future leaders learning

A mother helps her daughter Ange, 8, take classes on television at home in Man, Côte d'Ivoire.  Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, caregivers and educators have responded in stride and have been instrumental in finding ways to keep children learning.  In Côte d'Ivoire, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) partnered with the Ministry of Education on a ‘school at home’ initiative, which includes taping lessons to be aired on national TV and radio.  Ange says: “I like to study at home.  My mum is a teacher and helps me a lot.  Of course, I miss my friends, but I can sleep a bit longer in the morning.  Later I want to become a lawyer or judge."  Photo: UNICEF/UNI320749

Global solidarity

People in Nigeria’s Lagos State simulate sneezing into their elbows during a coronavirus prevention campaign.  Many African countries do not have strong health care systems.  “Global solidarity with Africa is an imperative – now and for recovering better,” said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.  “Ending the pandemic in Africa is essential for ending it across the world.” Photo: UNICEF Nigeria/2020/Ojo

A new way of working

Henri Abued Manzano, a tour guide at the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna, speaks from his apartment.  COVID-19 upended the way people work, but they can be creative while in quarantine.  “We quickly decided that if visitors can’t come to us, we will have to come to them,” says Johanna Kleinert, Chief of the UNIS Visitors Service in Vienna.  Photo courtesy of Kevin Kühn

Life goes on

Hundreds of millions of babies are expected to be born during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Fionn, son of Chloe O'Doherty and her husband Patrick, is among them.  The couple says: “It's all over.  We did it.  Brought life into the world at a time when everything is so uncertain.  The relief and love are palpable.  Nothing else matters.”  Photo: UNICEF/UNI321984/Bopape

Putting meals on the table

Sudanese refugee Halima, in Tripoli, Libya, says food assistance is making her life better.  COVID-19 is exacerbating the existing hunger crisis.  Globally, 6 million more people could be pushed into extreme poverty unless the international community acts now.  United Nations aid agencies are appealing for more funding to reach vulnerable populations.  Photo: UNHCR

Supporting the frontlines

The United Nations Air Service, run by the World Food Programme (WFP), distributes protective gear donated by the Jack Ma Foundation and Alibaba Group, in Somalia. The United Nations is using its supply chain capacity to rapidly move badly needed personal protective equipment, such as medical masks, gloves, gowns and face-shields to the frontline of the battle against COVID-19. Photo: WFP/Jama Hassan  

S7-Episode 2: Bringing Health to the World

“You see, we're not doing this work to make ourselves feel better. That sort of conventional notion of what a do-gooder is. We're doing this work because we are totally convinced that it's not necessary in today's wealthy world for so many people to be experiencing discomfort, for so many people to be experiencing hardship, for so many people to have their lives and their livelihoods imperiled.”

Dr. David Nabarro has dedicated his life to global health. After a long career that’s taken him from the horrors of war torn Iraq, to the devastating aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, he is still spurred to action by the tremendous inequalities in global access to medical care.

“The thing that keeps me awake most at night is the rampant inequities in our world…We see an awful lot of needless suffering.”

:: David Nabarro interviewed by Melissa Fleming

Brazilian ballet pirouettes during pandemic

Ballet Manguinhos, named for its favela in Rio de Janeiro, returns to the stage after a long absence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It counts 250 children and teenagers from the favela as its performers. The ballet group provides social support in a community where poverty, hunger and teen pregnancy are constant issues.

Radio journalist gives the facts on COVID-19 in Uzbekistan

The pandemic has put many people to the test, and journalists are no exception. Coronavirus has waged war not only against people's lives and well-being but has also spawned countless hoaxes and scientific falsehoods.

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The Coronavirus Crisis

Global photos: how lockdown has changed my life.

• The Everyday Projects

How has the novel coronavirus changed your life? Show us in a picture.

That is the assignment we gave to the more than 600 photographers who work with Everyday Projects — contributing to Instagram accounts from countries in Asia, Africa, Central and South America, North America and Europe.

Their mission is "to challenge stereotypes that distort our understanding of the world."

In this case, they found that parts of their lives had been altered dramatically. But they also found solace in showing how ordinary activities could still go on — and give a sense of comfort.

The images they submitted to NPR are a visual testament to the unforeseeable changes that came in 2020 as this virus swept the globe, triggering a pandemic that has altered the way we all live.

Here are images submitted to NPR for this project. They are pictures of uncertainty and of sorrow, but also of joy and hope, which have not been destroyed even in this most difficult of times.

My husband, Mbaye, helps Lola with her schoolwork. He's taken over as her teacher for the past couple of months as we do online school. After some initial frustration, we realized we just need to do things at our own pace and make sure to have fun. May 18, 2020. Dakar, Senegal. Ricci Shryock/@EverydayAfrica hide caption

My husband, Mbaye, helps Lola with her schoolwork. He's taken over as her teacher for the past couple of months as we do online school. After some initial frustration, we realized we just need to do things at our own pace and make sure to have fun. May 18, 2020. Dakar, Senegal.

My wife, Priscila, drinks gin and tonic and applies a beauty mask in her bathroom. It's important to still enjoy and take care of ourselves. April 25, 2020. Brasilia, Brazil. Gustavo Minas/@EverydayBrasil hide caption

My wife, Priscila, drinks gin and tonic and applies a beauty mask in her bathroom. It's important to still enjoy and take care of ourselves. April 25, 2020. Brasilia, Brazil.

Samba artist Teresa Cristina sings during a daily Instagram live. We used to go to samba circles in the street every week to be together, now we go to samba online. It's certainly not the same but still feels intimate. Despite everything, it's still possible to be together in this other realm sharing music that we love. May 19, 2020. Rio de Janeiro. Maria Magdalena Arrellaga/@EverydayLatinAmerica hide caption

Samba artist Teresa Cristina sings during a daily Instagram live. We used to go to samba circles in the street every week to be together, now we go to samba online. It's certainly not the same but still feels intimate. Despite everything, it's still possible to be together in this other realm sharing music that we love. May 19, 2020. Rio de Janeiro.

My 1-year-old son likes to experience everything. While I was mopping the floor on Day 12 of the lockdown, he came forward to take the mop from me. My husband and I have been struggling to find a balance during the lockdown. We take turns to work, cook, do chores and look after our baby. April 3, 2010, Delhi, India. Smita Sharma/@EverydaySouthEastAsia hide caption

My 1-year-old son likes to experience everything. While I was mopping the floor on Day 12 of the lockdown, he came forward to take the mop from me. My husband and I have been struggling to find a balance during the lockdown. We take turns to work, cook, do chores and look after our baby. April 3, 2010, Delhi, India.

The wife of the assistant pastor at Iglesia La Luz De Cristo prays at the Easter service, which was webcast and included Hector, a COVID-19 survivor. Now walking through my neighborhood is mainly quiet. The people haven't disappeared; they've just changed. April 12, 2020. Chelsea, Mass. David Degner/@EverydayMiddleEast hide caption

The wife of the assistant pastor at Iglesia La Luz De Cristo prays at the Easter service, which was webcast and included Hector, a COVID-19 survivor. Now walking through my neighborhood is mainly quiet. The people haven't disappeared; they've just changed. April 12, 2020. Chelsea, Mass.

A soldier wears gloves to protect against the coronavirus on an army patrol of the city during the government-mandated curfew. March 26, 2020, Cali, Colombia. Christian EscobarMora/@EverydayMacondo hide caption

A soldier wears gloves to protect against the coronavirus on an army patrol of the city during the government-mandated curfew. March 26, 2020, Cali, Colombia.

Jos Leal dos Santos, 53, sells goods on the street at Comercio, a district that before the coronavirus was a busy place of commerce. He says: "I have worked here for 14 years. I sell snacks and drinks on the streets. I'm always at that [place] but the sales are stopped." May 9, 2020. Salvador de Bahia, Brazil. Antonello Veneri/@EverydayBrasil hide caption

Jos Leal dos Santos, 53, sells goods on the street at Comercio, a district that before the coronavirus was a busy place of commerce. He says: "I have worked here for 14 years. I sell snacks and drinks on the streets. I'm always at that [place] but the sales are stopped." May 9, 2020. Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.

Huzaif, who's 12, and his friend, Danish, look out of an opening of a gate at the martyr's cemetery. During the lockdown, they often come here to spend time and have fun. Most schools have been closed in Kashmir because of the political situation since August 2019. May 18, 2020. Baramulla, North Kashmir. Showkat Nanda/The Everyday Projects hide caption

Huzaif, who's 12, and his friend, Danish, look out of an opening of a gate at the martyr's cemetery. During the lockdown, they often come here to spend time and have fun. Most schools have been closed in Kashmir because of the political situation since August 2019. May 18, 2020. Baramulla, North Kashmir.

My wife, Marisol Doyle, brings dinner tacos to the front door of our tiny guesthouse, where I was self-quarantining. Marisol would deliver fresh food as often as she could, and we would eat meals together on FaceTime. March 26, 2020, Cleveland, Miss. Rory Doyle/@EverydayRuralAmerica hide caption

My wife, Marisol Doyle, brings dinner tacos to the front door of our tiny guesthouse, where I was self-quarantining. Marisol would deliver fresh food as often as she could, and we would eat meals together on FaceTime. March 26, 2020, Cleveland, Miss.

An unidentified couple seal their marriage with a kiss at their drive-through wedding ceremony at the Family and Civil courthouse. Drive-through wedding ceremonies were offered to couples unable to marry traditionally because of the pandemic. May 14, 2020. Gainesville, Fla. Kari Bjorn/@EverydayIncarceration hide caption

An unidentified couple seal their marriage with a kiss at their drive-through wedding ceremony at the Family and Civil courthouse. Drive-through wedding ceremonies were offered to couples unable to marry traditionally because of the pandemic. May 14, 2020. Gainesville, Fla.

My father during a videoconference with my brother. The very first thing that changed since the pandemic started is how we interact with other people, and how 6 feet of social distance for safety is the "new normal." April 16, 2020. Quito, Ecuador. Carlos Noriega/@EverydayEcuador hide caption

My father during a videoconference with my brother. The very first thing that changed since the pandemic started is how we interact with other people, and how 6 feet of social distance for safety is the "new normal." April 16, 2020. Quito, Ecuador.

No more late night running due to the curfew. The sky has been replaced with a concrete roof. I just realized that I have not seen the sunset or the twilight glow for I don't even know how many days. April 14, 2020, Cairo. Salih Basheer/@EverydayAfrica @EverydayEgypt hide caption

No more late night running due to the curfew. The sky has been replaced with a concrete roof. I just realized that I have not seen the sunset or the twilight glow for I don't even know how many days. April 14, 2020, Cairo.

Jose celebrates his 39th birthday with his family. Because of the lockdown, many people born in March and April had to make different arrangements for this year's celebration. Jose's celebration was restricted to members of his nuclear family. Other friends and family sent regards via a video that his wife and sister put together. April 30, 2020. Madrid. Guillermo Gutierrez/@EverydayPeru hide caption

Jose celebrates his 39th birthday with his family. Because of the lockdown, many people born in March and April had to make different arrangements for this year's celebration. Jose's celebration was restricted to members of his nuclear family. Other friends and family sent regards via a video that his wife and sister put together. April 30, 2020. Madrid.

My father, George Bronstein, celebrating his 100th birthday at his home last year. March 10, 2019. East Falmouth, Mass. Paula Bronstein/@EverydayClimateChange hide caption

My father, George Bronstein, celebrating his 100th birthday at his home last year. March 10, 2019. East Falmouth, Mass.

Rabbi Alias Lieberman stands alone by the grave of my father, George Bronstein, in the Baker Street Jewish cemetery. Our family was prohibited from having any kind of gathering at the grave; we were forced to stay in our vehicles. This photo was taken from my rental car. My father passed away of natural causes at age 101 at his home in Cape Cod. April 2, 2020. Boston, Massachusetts. Paula Bronstein/@EverydayAsia hide caption

Rabbi Alias Lieberman stands alone by the grave of my father, George Bronstein, in the Baker Street Jewish cemetery. Our family was prohibited from having any kind of gathering at the grave; we were forced to stay in our vehicles. This photo was taken from my rental car. My father passed away of natural causes at age 101 at his home in Cape Cod. April 2, 2020. Boston, Massachusetts.

Maintenance and security staff, whose work is often unnoticed and unappreciated, are risking their lives to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all of us. I took this image as one of the workers fumigated the park, which is usually busy at this time of the evening with residents exercising and doing yoga. April 24, 2020. Delhi, India. Smita Sharma/@EverydaySouthEastAsia hide caption

Maintenance and security staff, whose work is often unnoticed and unappreciated, are risking their lives to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all of us. I took this image as one of the workers fumigated the park, which is usually busy at this time of the evening with residents exercising and doing yoga. April 24, 2020. Delhi, India.

Cristiane Silva takes her dogs for a walk. As a freelance photojournalist, I work much of the time on the street, with significant amount of interaction with other people. After two months at home, things have changed drastically. April 6, 2020. Rio de Janeiro. Maria Magdalena Arrellaga/@EverydayLatinAmerica hide caption

Cristiane Silva takes her dogs for a walk. As a freelance photojournalist, I work much of the time on the street, with significant amount of interaction with other people. After two months at home, things have changed drastically. April 6, 2020. Rio de Janeiro.

My niece, Nisime, in her hiding place — my parents' closet. She is my muse during the quarantine days. April 3, 2020. Tbilisi, Georgia Daro Sulakauri/@EverydayEasternEurope hide caption

My niece, Nisime, in her hiding place — my parents' closet. She is my muse during the quarantine days. April 3, 2020. Tbilisi, Georgia

"I'm glad we have time together. A lot of time," said my husband, pictured here working late at night in our apartment. He said this as we fell asleep that same night. It's true usually I am on the road most of the year, and it's really special to have so much time together. It makes being stuck inside so much more enjoyable. April 7, 2020, Istanbul. Danielle Villasana/@EverydayEverywhere hide caption

"I'm glad we have time together. A lot of time," said my husband, pictured here working late at night in our apartment. He said this as we fell asleep that same night. It's true usually I am on the road most of the year, and it's really special to have so much time together. It makes being stuck inside so much more enjoyable. April 7, 2020, Istanbul.

I streamed a press conference given by President Trump in our backyard guesthouse where I was self-quarantining. During quarantine, I would try and watch the press conferences on a daily basis. I think his interactions with the media were historic and will be analyzed years from now when we examine America's response to the virus. March 26, 2020, Cleveland, Miss. Rory Doyle/@EverydayRuralAmerica hide caption

I streamed a press conference given by President Trump in our backyard guesthouse where I was self-quarantining. During quarantine, I would try and watch the press conferences on a daily basis. I think his interactions with the media were historic and will be analyzed years from now when we examine America's response to the virus. March 26, 2020, Cleveland, Miss.

What has changed the most in my life is the lack of personal contact with family members, some of whom are in a high-risk group due to age or health history. The lack of personal contact is also reflected in my photographic work. Social isolation made me distance myself from people, who are often the center of my stories. April 24, 2020, São Paulo, Brazil. Beto Lemos/@EverydayBrasil hide caption

What has changed the most in my life is the lack of personal contact with family members, some of whom are in a high-risk group due to age or health history. The lack of personal contact is also reflected in my photographic work. Social isolation made me distance myself from people, who are often the center of my stories. April 24, 2020, São Paulo, Brazil.

A quarantined teenager. May 21, 2020. Castro Valley, Calif. Alpana Aras-King/@EverydayBayArea hide caption

A quarantined teenager. May 21, 2020. Castro Valley, Calif.

Mask, gloves, a plastic shield and my hat. Like my shoes, they're now what I wear. March 23, 2020, Tbilisi, Georgia. Daro Sulakauri/@EverydayEasternEurope hide caption

Mask, gloves, a plastic shield and my hat. Like my shoes, they're now what I wear. March 23, 2020, Tbilisi, Georgia.

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Life, emptiness and resolve: A photo essay on the pandemic’s toll along Pico Boulevard

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Los Angeles imposed coronavirus restrictions on restaurants, bars, gyms and other businesses on March 15, 2020. It was the beginning of a year of loss, upheaval and constant adaptation. Public health rules kept evolving. Relief programs brought help for some but only red tape for others. Supply chains were a mess. There were shoppers who feared even entering stores and customers who crowded newly built patios. Some businesses cut hours, services and staff, or shut down. Many have survived beyond their expectations. Staff photographer Genaro Molina shows us how much Pico Boulevard has changed one year later.

“We are deeply grateful for the support we have received during these unprecedented times & throughout the 10 plus years we have been in business. It is with great sadness that due to the continuing challenges of the pandemic for our industry we have made the difficult decision to close.”

— Statement on website for Westside Tavern

“(The) pandemic has greatly effected our business.”

— Robert Oliver, sign spinner at Liberty Tax Service

“Now it’s worse than last year.”

— Laura Peres at Dana Accesorios in the Garment District

“We are collectively feeling the loss. So I think just collectively mourning and acknowledging it provides a level of healing that is hard to translate into words.”

— Karla Funderburk, whose gallery has received 60,000 from 45 states and nine countries from as far away as Tibet.

“2020 felt like our year. We blew up on social media. The abrupt halt was the hardest part for me,”

— Angela Guison, manager of Rave Wonderland

When the doors of Botanica Luz del Día were closed early on in the pandemic, customers couldn’t browse for their preferred veladoras or stop into the Pico-Union store for tarot readings. The shop went online and sales rebounded. “The website is booming right now,” said Anthony Ponce, grandson of the owner.

“Concerts went to zero. Lessons dropped to 5% of what it was. We’re seeing a lot of repair business from people who are stuck at home and want to play. Consignments are up a lot.”

— Walt McGraw, who has been running the 63-year-old shop with his wife, Nora, since her parents’ retirement.

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Genaro Molina is an award-winning staff photographer for the Los Angeles Times. He has worked in journalism for more than 35 years starting at the San Francisco Chronicle. Molina has photographed the life and death of Pope John Paul II, the tragedy of AIDS in Africa, the impact of Hurricane Katrina, and Cuba after Castro. His work has appeared in nine books and his photographs have been exhibited extensively including at the Smithsonian Institute and the Annenberg Space for Photography.

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'COVID-19 Threw a Curve Ball at Us': Student Photo Essays Document Life During a Pandemic

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“We wanted a senior year for the record books, and we got it! … Just not for the reason we expected. COVID-19 threw a curve ball at us, but we’ve made it our mission to find happiness in different places.”

With these words, Duke student Nneka Nwabueze begins a photo essay of student life during the pandemic. It’s part of a class project Digital Documentary Photography: Education, Childhood, and Growth (DOCTST 209S / FS), a Center for Documentary Studies course taught by Susie Post-Rust. Students created essays showcasing how they used documentary photography to explore topics such as essential workers, anti-racism work, the economy and more.

“At the  Center for Documentary Studies   we have been committed to making art that reflects this unusual time in our collective history,” Post-Rust said. “This semester was not the norm, and these students rose to the challenge! They turned their cameras to the issues of this moment, ranging from responses to coronavirus to Black Lives Matter and even the effort to find identity or normalcy in this moment.  Our class was held remotely, and students attended from as far away as southern California or Maine and from as close as campus. Throughout the semester, each student documented their project in an effort to be AWAKE to this moment in history.”

The class was held in conjunction with Duke Service-Learning. To see the photos, created two portfolio sites,  Colored by COVID and  College with COVID .

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Eleven student documentary films about women in politics, link to this page.

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Photo Essay Captures How COVID-19 Has Transformed BU

A darkened hallway in the College of Arts & Sciences, March 18. BU buildings have been largely vacant since the University moved all teaching and learning remotely on March 16 in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Photo by Cydney Scott

Images document the subtle—and not so subtle—ways the pandemic has altered campus

Bu today staff.

From the moment the University announced that starting March 16 it was moving to remote teaching and learning for the rest of the spring semester, then shuttered residences for most students as of March 22, BU campuses took on a startlingly different look, transformed overnight from bustling metropolises to a series of largely empty interior and exterior landscapes. 

Staff photojournalists Cydney Scott and Jackie Ricciardi have continued to photograph the campuses since the pandemic caused the city of Boston to limit the normal operations of businesses, even as most students have returned home and most faculty and staff are working remotely.

“As a photographer for BU Today, the biggest danger I usually face at work is whether or not I’ll squeeze into a spot on the BU shuttle on my way to an assignment on a rainy day,” Scott says. “Photographing Comm Ave during the midst of a pandemic brings risks of a different, more frightening order.” The two maintain a safe social distance when shooting their subjects—which brings new challenges. “Where I would typically move around during a shoot, being a ‘fly on the wall,’ my movement now is largely limited,” she says.

“Photographing during the pandemic has been a struggle for me,” says Ricciardi. “As a photojournalist, my goal is to capture human connection, and I wonder how I can do that successfully when the streets are empty and we’re told we must stay away from people…yet one of the most significant  events in history is happening in my lifetime and it’s my responsibility to try and capture that.”

Their images will serve to chronicle this moment in history for years to come.

Meredith Siegel (left) and Rachel Reiser, both Questrom assistant deans, practice social distancing while prepping for a “dean’s huddle” meeting via Zoom on March 16. Photo by Cydney Scott

A sign posted outside the College of Communication  student lounge March 16. Photo by Cydney Scott

Bruno Rubio, a College of Arts & Sciences master lecturer in chemistry, holding remote office hours in a Metcalf Science Center lecture hall March 17. “I was old-school with my teaching,” says Rubio, “My clinging to traditional methods of learning and teaching? I’m paying for it now!” In fact, he mastered Zoom quickly and was able to assist the eight students who needed help that day. Photo by Cydney Scott

An eerily empty FitRec basketball court on March 17. FitRec closed that day. Photo by Cydney Scott

Paradise Rock Club assistant production manager Will Powell posting an encouraging message on the club’s marquee March 17. The Paradise is closed indefinitely because of the coronavirus pandemic, like all the commonwealth’s bars, restaurants, and entertainment spots. Photo by Cydney Scott

COM staff members on video screens in the school’s Zimmerman Social Media Activation Center during a Zoom meeting March 17. Photo by Cydney Scott

BU custodian Grace Araujo at work at StuVi I on March 17. BU’s custodial staff continues to clean and maintain BU’s 300 buildings during the pandemic. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Victory Innovations battery-operated electrostatic spray guns are prized by custodial workers for their deep cleaning ability. BU invested in about 20 of the spray guns, which are in such high demand now that they are almost impossible to get. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

The first day of remote learning: a lone student studying at Mugar Memorial Library on March 16. The library is now closed to students, but staff continue to provide support and services remotely. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Entering the George Sherman Union on March 16 (left) and finding it almost empty on March 18 (right) must have been surreal experiences. Fewer than 450 students remain in BU housing at present. Photos by Jackie Ricciardi (left) and Cydney Scott (right)

Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, dean of Marsh Chapel, on his way to the chapel’s first virtual Sunday service on March 22. The eight choral scholars on the altar are six feet apart during the service. Photos by Cydney Scott 

A triage tent for intake of potential coronavirus patients set up outside Boston Medical Center March 20. BMC nurses Marisa McIntyre (left) and Maureen Shanahan-Frappie are among staff there who assess patients’ symptoms and determine whether they should be sent to BMC’s influenza-like illness clinic (ILI) for moderate symptoms or to the Emergency Department for more serious conditions. COVID-19 testing is done at both. Photo by Cydney Scott

Except for exceptional cases, most students living on campus had to be out of their rooms by March 22. Xing Hu (CAS’22) (left) waits with Abin George (ENG’23) outside Claflin Hall to be picked up March 20. Photo by Cydney Scott

Goodbyes: Northeastern freshman Nadhur Prashant (left) with his girlfriend, Anindita Lal (CAS’23), on West Campus March 20.  Lal was returning  home to Acton, Mass., and Prashant was leaving Boston to go home to India. Photo by Cydney Scott

Bicycles and strewn moving carts in the courtyard between 722 and 726 Comm Ave on March 25, after dorms were shuttered. Photo by Cydney Scott

Millyan Phillips of Piece by Piece Moving Company empties a room on the Fenway Campus’ Riverway House March 27. Students who had left belongings behind when they went on spring break were able to use an app to specify items they wanted stored, saved, or thrown out. Photo by Cydney Scott

An abandoned Fenway Campus Center, bereft of its usual throngs of students, on April 15. The 150 Riverway building houses the campus dining hall and common student spaces as well as student residences. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

A flyer reminding residents to maintain social distance guidelines, left on a Fenway Campus Center table. Photo by Jackie Ricciardi

Left photo: Quarantine kits lined up in the GSU Ballroom on April 15. The kits, containing two weeks’ worth of cleaning supplies, paper goods, pillows, linens, and nonperishable snacks and meals, were available to students quarantined on campus because of exposure to COVID-19. Right photo: Jennifer Skikas (left), GSU catering sales manager, and Joann Flores, catering manager for Questrom, load up some of the items to be delivered to empty quarantine rooms across campus on April 21. Photos by Cydney Scott

Lead custodian Carlos Carreiro (left) and custodian Andres Lopez deliver paper goods to empty quarantine rooms at 580 Comm Ave April 21. The University reserved approximately 50 rooms across campus for students who needed to be quarantined during the pandemic. Photo by Cydney Scott

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There are 7 comments on Photo Essay Captures How COVID-19 Has Transformed BU

Jackie and Cydney, wonderful yet weird campus shots. Thank you for being on site capturing this for us.

Thank you, Cydney and Jackie, for these images that capture so many elements of BU during this difficult time of grieving for the world, and caring for each other. You make us proud, even prouder, of BU people!

Thanks for Cydney and Jackie’s excellenct and memorable work with these capturing photos! my son is still in BU for his master degree study and will finish his study by May. Our family apprecaites all the work and effort by BU during this special and difficult period. We are proud my son is a student of BU!

Wow! Great images. Your photos tell a very moving story. You also managed to capture an image of my son studying in the library. He is the lone student at the Mugar Memorial Library. Can you please let me know how I can buy a copy of that image? Thank you.

Great work. Is there a way that I can get a copy Of one of the images. My son is in that photo.

Shoot me an email Dina and I’ll see what we can do. Cydney [email protected]

Fantastic photography & story, thank you for sharing! Our son never had the chance to return to BU after spring break, so to see what BU looks like now is very moving. Our family is grateful to all the BU staff, faculty & students and look forward to the day we can visit Boston again!

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Photo essay: Faces of the Pandemic

• Features Photo essay: Metamorphosis A place of pride for pathology labs Lessons from COVID-19 No shortcut to success Keeping air free of COVID Not an academic question A year-long homework assignment Accelerating Communication between Scientists Photo essay: Faces of the Pandemic Shedding new light on an underacknowledged epidemic Catching a dream
• News A reunion to remember A coup for comparative medicine Prisoners of broken systems
• People Generations of medical expertise A historian of medical futures looks back Yale’s Senior Advisor to the FDA Commissioner The next wave of physician-entrepreneurs
• Dialogue The Lost Art of Dying: Reviving Forgotten Wisdom Keeping our stories for the future A unified response You have to have empathy

A pandemic photo essay

Anusha sundararajan, cesar vazquez, sandra johnson, hiam naiditch, merceditas villanueva, felipe lopez, alice lu-culligan, leah tenenbaum.

Faces of the Pandemic is an ongoing portrait photography project documenting the experiences of essential health care workers throughout the pandemic—an unprecedented time for Yale’s medical community, the nation, and the world. It is meant to show appreciation for these individuals and provide a platform for them to share their stories.

Representing a variety of roles at Yale School of Medicine and Yale New Haven Hospital, each participant is photographed wearing their typical work attire, including PPE. Formal portraits display respect for the subjects while candids capture their range of emotions. The photos have been minimally edited to maintain a documentary feel.

Each participant answered five questions to catalogue their experience of the pandemic. For Yale Medicine Magazine we’ve chosen to highlight a common thread: The pandemic has…

Allaire Bartel Creative Direction; Anthony DeCarlo Photography.

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Coronavirus: My Experience During the Pandemic

Anastasiya Kandratsenka George Washington High School, Class of 2021

At this point in time there shouldn't be a single person who doesn't know about the coronavirus, or as they call it, COVID-19. The coronavirus is a virus that originated in China, reached the U.S. and eventually spread all over the world by January of 2020. The common symptoms of the virus include shortness of breath, chills, sore throat, headache, loss of taste and smell, runny nose, vomiting and nausea. As it has been established, it might take up to 14 days for the symptoms to show. On top of that, the virus is also highly contagious putting all age groups at risk. The elderly and individuals with chronic diseases such as pneumonia or heart disease are in the top risk as the virus attacks the immune system. 

The virus first appeared on the news and media platforms in the month of January of this year. The United States and many other countries all over the globe saw no reason to panic as it seemed that the virus presented no possible threat. Throughout the next upcoming months, the virus began to spread very quickly, alerting health officials not only in the U.S., but all over the world. As people started digging into the origin of the virus, it became clear that it originated in China. Based on everything scientists have looked at, the virus came from a bat that later infected other animals, making it way to humans. As it goes for the United States, the numbers started rising quickly, resulting in the cancellation of sports events, concerts, large gatherings and then later on schools. 

As it goes personally for me, my school was shut down on March 13th. The original plan was to put us on a two weeks leave, returning on March 30th but, as the virus spread rapidly and things began escalating out of control very quickly, President Trump announced a state of emergency and the whole country was put on quarantine until April 30th. At that point, schools were officially shut down for the rest of the school year. Distanced learning was introduced, online classes were established, a new norm was put in place. As for the School District of Philadelphia distanced learning and online classes began on May 4th. From that point on I would have classes four times a week, from 8AM till 3PM. Virtual learning was something that I never had to experience and encounter before. It was all new and different for me, just as it was for millions of students all over the United States. We were forced to transfer from physically attending school, interacting with our peers and teachers, participating in fun school events and just being in a classroom setting, to just looking at each other through a computer screen in a number of days. That is something that we all could have never seen coming, it was all so sudden and new. 

My experience with distanced learning was not very great. I get distracted very easily and   find it hard to concentrate, especially when it comes to school. In a classroom I was able to give my full attention to what was being taught, I was all there. However, when we had the online classes, I could not focus and listen to what my teachers were trying to get across. I got distracted very easily, missing out on important information that was being presented. My entire family which consists of five members, were all home during the quarantine. I have two little siblings who are very loud and demanding, so I’m sure it can be imagined how hard it was for me to concentrate on school and do what was asked of me when I had these two running around the house. On top of school, I also had to find a job and work 35 hours a week to support my family during the pandemic. My mother lost her job for the time being and my father was only able to work from home. As we have a big family, the income of my father was not enough. I made it my duty to help out and support our family as much as I could: I got a job at a local supermarket and worked there as a cashier for over two months. 

While I worked at the supermarket, I was exposed to dozens of people every day and with all the protection that was implemented to protect the customers and the workers, I was lucky enough to not get the virus. As I say that, my grandparents who do not even live in the U.S. were not so lucky. They got the virus and spent over a month isolated, in a hospital bed, with no one by their side. Our only way of communicating was through the phone and if lucky, we got to talk once a week. Speaking for my family, that was the worst and scariest part of the whole situation. Luckily for us, they were both able to recover completely. 

As the pandemic is somewhat under control, the spread of the virus has slowed down. We’re now living in the new norm. We no longer view things the same, the way we did before. Large gatherings and activities that require large groups to come together are now unimaginable! Distanced learning is what we know, not to mention the importance of social distancing and having to wear masks anywhere and everywhere we go. This is the new norm now and who knows when and if ever we’ll be able go back to what we knew before. This whole experience has made me realize that we, as humans, tend to take things for granted and don’t value what we have until it is taken away from us. 

Articles in this Volume

[tid]: dedication, [tid]: new tools for a new house: transformations for justice and peace in and beyond covid-19, [tid]: black lives matter, intersectionality, and lgbtq rights now, [tid]: the voice of asian american youth: what goes untold, [tid]: beyond words: reimagining education through art and activism, [tid]: voice(s) of a black man, [tid]: embodied learning and community resilience, [tid]: re-imagining professional learning in a time of social isolation: storytelling as a tool for healing and professional growth, [tid]: reckoning: what does it mean to look forward and back together as critical educators, [tid]: leader to leaders: an indigenous school leader’s advice through storytelling about grief and covid-19, [tid]: finding hope, healing and liberation beyond covid-19 within a context of captivity and carcerality, [tid]: flux leadership: leading for justice and peace in & beyond covid-19, [tid]: flux leadership: insights from the (virtual) field, [tid]: hard pivot: compulsory crisis leadership emerges from a space of doubt, [tid]: and how are the children, [tid]: real talk: teaching and leading while bipoc, [tid]: systems of emotional support for educators in crisis, [tid]: listening leadership: the student voices project, [tid]: global engagement, perspective-sharing, & future-seeing in & beyond a global crisis, [tid]: teaching and leadership during covid-19: lessons from lived experiences, [tid]: crisis leadership in independent schools - styles & literacies, [tid]: rituals, routines and relationships: high school athletes and coaches in flux, [tid]: superintendent back-to-school welcome 2020, [tid]: mitigating summer learning loss in philadelphia during covid-19: humble attempts from the field, [tid]: untitled, [tid]: the revolution will not be on linkedin: student activism and neoliberalism, [tid]: why radical self-care cannot wait: strategies for black women leaders now, [tid]: from emergency response to critical transformation: online learning in a time of flux, [tid]: illness methodology for and beyond the covid era, [tid]: surviving black girl magic, the work, and the dissertation, [tid]: cancelled: the old student experience, [tid]: lessons from liberia: integrating theatre for development and youth development in uncertain times, [tid]: designing a more accessible future: learning from covid-19, [tid]: the construct of standards-based education, [tid]: teachers leading teachers to prepare for back to school during covid, [tid]: using empathy to cross the sea of humanity, [tid]: (un)doing college, community, and relationships in the time of coronavirus, [tid]: have we learned nothing, [tid]: choosing growth amidst chaos, [tid]: living freire in pandemic….participatory action research and democratizing knowledge at knowledgedemocracy.org, [tid]: philly students speak: voices of learning in pandemics, [tid]: the power of will: a letter to my descendant, [tid]: photo essays with students, [tid]: unity during a global pandemic: how the fight for racial justice made us unite against two diseases, [tid]: educational changes caused by the pandemic and other related social issues, [tid]: online learning during difficult times, [tid]: fighting crisis: a student perspective, [tid]: the destruction of soil rooted with culture, [tid]: a demand for change, [tid]: education through experience in and beyond the pandemics, [tid]: the pandemic diaries, [tid]: all for one and 4 for $4, [tid]: tiktok activism, [tid]: why digital learning may be the best option for next year, [tid]: my 2020 teen experience, [tid]: living between two pandemics, [tid]: journaling during isolation: the gold standard of coronavirus, [tid]: sailing through uncertainty, [tid]: what i wish my teachers knew, [tid]: youthing in pandemic while black, [tid]: the pain inflicted by indifference, [tid]: education during the pandemic, [tid]: the good, the bad, and the year 2020, [tid]: racism fueled pandemic, [tid]: coronavirus: my experience during the pandemic, [tid]: the desensitization of a doomed generation, [tid]: a philadelphia war-zone, [tid]: the attack of the covid monster, [tid]: back-to-school: covid-19 edition, [tid]: the unexpected war, [tid]: learning outside of the classroom, [tid]: why we should learn about college financial aid in school: a student perspective, [tid]: flying the plane as we go: building the future through a haze, [tid]: my covid experience in the age of technology, [tid]: we, i, and they, [tid]: learning your a, b, cs during a pandemic, [tid]: quarantine: a musical, [tid]: what it’s like being a high school student in 2020, [tid]: everything happens for a reason, [tid]: blacks live matter – a sobering and empowering reality among my peers, [tid]: the mental health of a junior during covid-19 outbreaks, [tid]: a year of change, [tid]: covid-19 and school, [tid]: the virtues and vices of virtual learning, [tid]: college decisions and the year 2020: a virtual rollercoaster, [tid]: quarantine thoughts, [tid]: quarantine through generation z, [tid]: attending online school during a pandemic.

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Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

• The Vox guide to navigating the coronavirus crisis

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

• A syllabus for the end of the world

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

• What day is it today?

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

• Vox is starting a book club. Come read with us!

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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Witnessing Pandemic New York, With an Ear to the Past

The Times photographer Todd Heisler has crisscrossed New York City during the pandemic. A new project combines the images he captured with audio from before the virus quieted the city.

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By Todd Heisler

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.

The silence of Yankee Stadium was profound.

I was there in mid-May to photograph symbols of baseball where none was being played. When I peered through the stadium gates, though, I could imagine the sounds of a stadium packed with fans and, for a moment, feel as if I were there for an afternoon game.

Months later and a borough over, I sat with my camera in Citi Field, nearly empty save for a few hundred cutouts of fans, listening to piped-in crowd sounds as the Mets played their season opener.

As a staff photographer for The New York Times, I’ve been privileged to witness and capture a New York in the last five months that few others have seen during the coronavirus pandemic. I’ve published many of those photographs in a visual column called “ New York Shuttered .”

That work has also led to a new photo essay, “The New York City of Our Imagination,” which aims to contrast the stillness of those images with the noisiness of the city that we all remember. The project, which appears in print as a special section on Saturday, also features words by the Times reporter Dan Barry, who so eloquently wrote, “We are living in the echo.”

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Photo essay: Montreal's new normal during the pandemic

One image at a time, Gazette photographers focus our eyes on a city transformed by COVID-19. An illustration of life as we now know it.

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Photo essay: montreal's new normal during the pandemic back to video.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this photo essay incorrectly identified Catherine Karamanoukian as a travel agent for Air Transat, when in fact she works for Voyages Transat at Carrefour Laval. The Gazette regrets the error.

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• COVID-19: Quebec considering closing schools for short period, Legault says

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Photo Essay: NCH Doctors & Nurses Reflect on Profession During Pandemic

Each year, hospitals and facilities across the country celebrate nurses and healthcare staff during the month of May. Photographer Lisette Morales visited NCH North Naples Hospital to photograph staff on the front lines of the coronavirus, where NCH medical professionals reflect on their profession – and mental state – during a pandemic.

"As critical care physicians and intensivists, we work 7 days in a row in the same ICU to optimize continuity and team dynamics, putting the patient first," said Dr. Douglas Harrington . "The average [I work] a week is 80 to 90 hours."

He says that at the end of each day, he takes time to reflect on what occurred that day, and what tomorrow may bring.

"The time to truly relax is when your 7-day schedule is completed, and I do try to relax each night when home in my garden and with my family. However, you never can completely turn off the switch when you work seven days in a row," said Harrington.

Pediatric Nurse Gail Collins says that she is relieved that the pandemic hasn’t affected Southwest Florida as much as she had originally anticipated, but she remains apprehensive as to what will happen in the coming months. She works three twelve-hour shifts per week.

"I arrive at 6:30 AM, take reports, and then work with my 2-3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) babies for the remainder of my shift."

Collins says NICU nurses help one another with admissions and more complicated or demanding assignments. "I like to go for long walks on days I don’t work and this provides time for reflection and relaxation."

Kitty Koshko, NCH Respiratory Therapist, says her schedule changes each week.

"It’s what works for me," said Koshko. She says she treats every day as a day of reflection and a day of hope. "[I] embrace the challenges of the day and hope to make a difference," said Koshko.

Doctor Harrington says with the support of the staff and administration, and all following the PPE guidelines, he feels safe working at NCH during this outbreak of coronavirus.

"As critical care physicians, we are trained and work in an environment of high pressure, fast-paced, difficult decisions, attention to detail, and teamwork," said Harrington.

"I feel safe [at work] as we have good support and adequate PPE and supplies currently," said Gail Collins. "We receive updates via conference calls three days per week."

Collins says the conference calls inform staff about how NCH is responding to COVID-19 challenges.

Kitty Koshko says she feels "absolutely" safe while working at NCH right now, but the community at large is what has exceeded her expectations.

"I would’ve been lost without them," said Koshko. "I really appreciated the generosity and donations that I could've never expected."

"The community support has been phenomenal, especially some of the local restaurants providing meals to the hospital staff and stores providing necessary home supplies to hospital employees," said Harrington.

"I have never felt so appreciated!" said Gail Collins. "The community has provided many meals, gift cards, and other tokens of appreciation, and friends and neighbors are supportive of health care professionals."

As far as handling a pandemic in the future, these health professionals offer a bit of advice.

"You have to stay focused, engaged, and informed," said Dr. Harrington. "Listen to the guidelines. Become involved and support some aspects of the response. In the future, we need to have learned from the present pandemic and be better prepared, hopefully, less reactionary and have all aspects of the response teams work together."

"Be open-minded and embrace the challenge, but be smart," said Kitty Koshko.

"Listen to the experts, ignore unreliable sources, believe in science, and be patient," said Gail Collins. "Never underestimate the power of kind words and gestures."

• If I were Australia/ Kalau aku Australia

Photo essay: A pandemic in pictures

• Photo Essay

More than one year into the COVID-19 pandemic, the virus is still having unforeseen impacts

Indonesia has followed a common trajectory to many nations. From underplaying the presence or impact of the virus in the early days, implementing a 'lockdown' of sorts (in Indonesia known as Large-Scale Social Restrictions, Pembatasan Sosial Berskala Besar: PSBB) and then strategically emerging from it, to securing a vaccine deal with China. As a nation with some 70 per cent of workers in the informal economy, a harsh and long-term lockdown was always going to be hard to implement on a national scale. Many communities enforced their own 'lockdown mandiri'. Somewhat more problematically, in various cities the police called on preman (local thugs to help enforce the wearing of masks and the following of other health protocols. 

Banners, murals and signs have sprung up on city streets, creating a very public reminder of efforts to combat the spread of the virus. The pandemic has also left its mark on the urban landscape in other ways: the Wisma Atlet in Kemayoran, used for the Asian Games in 2018, has been turned into a make-shift hotel for COVID-19 patients in self-isolation. As Ahmad’s photos show, cemeteries too have been filled to overflowing with those who have died from the coronavirus. New cemeteries have had to be built; providing grim material evidence of the virus’s reach and in turn rendering statistics on infection numbers somewhat irrelevant. 

The eerie quietude of Jakarta during PSBB, provided a glimpse of what the city would look like if its pollution was brought under control. But the PSBB asymmetrically disadvantaged the urban poor: little wonder there were riots when the Jokowi-led government sought to implement the RUU Cipta Kerja or so-called Omnibus Law on Job Creation, which further compromised workers’ rights. 

I contacted Ahmad Tri Hawaari after following his photographs on Instagram. With visiting Indonesia almost impossible, I have found his imagery particularly useful in mediating the separation that those of us outside Indonesia may be experiencing. I think of the risks Ahmad takes to be 'out in the field' everyday, including risking exposure to COVID-19 (he has already had it once.) Ahmad’s photographs have an immediacy, vibrancy and clarity. They are neither sentimental or euphoric. But reveal his empathy with his subjects as he tracks the trajectory of Indonesia during this Pandemic Time. 

Andy Fuller, April 2021

Ahmad Tri Hawaari  studies journalism at Muhammadiyah University of Prof. Dr. Hamka, Jakarta. He recently completed a four month internship at Tempo magazine. His Instagram account is @ahmadtrihawaari.

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New SLC bar to open where longtime restaurant shuttered during the pandemic

Bar martine is scheduled to open nov. 1 where martine cafe once stood in downtown salt lake city..

Two Utah bars and six restaurants received their liquor licenses Thursday, including a bar that will be opening where a longtime restaurant once stood in downtown Salt Lake City.

The liquor commission of the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Services (DABS) awarded licenses to Bar Martine at 22 East 100 South, Salt Lake City, and The Station Bar at 12283 S. Herriman Main Street in Herriman.

Bar Martine is slated to open Nov. 1 in the spot once occupied by the restaurant Martine Cafe, which closed in 2020 and surrendered its liquor license in 2021, according to DABS spokesperson Michelle Schmitt.

Bar Martine will be part of the Pub Group of Restaurants, which also operates Desert Edge Brewery in Trolley Square and Stella Grill in Millcreek, Schmitt said.

The Station Bar is scheduled to open Feb. 15, 2025.

The six restaurants that received their full-service licenses on Tuesday include:

• Mi Buena Vida , 533 S. 1750 West, Springville. Mi Buena Vida has another location at 1500 S. 1500 East in Salt Lake City.

• Hilton Garden Inn , 250 W. 600 South, Salt Lake City.

• Kuchu Shabu , 2121 S. McClelland St., Salt Lake City.

• Ichiban Sushi , 1071 W. Riverdale Road, Riverdale.

• La Condesa, 11078 S. State St., Suite 105, Sandy. The projected opening date is Sept. 1.

• Wicked Peel Pizza Kitchen in Midvale. Projected opening Oct. 1.

After Thursday’s meeting, the state now has four bar licenses and 48 full-service restaurant licenses available.

Also during the meeting, the commission passed rules that codify recent changes by the Legislature. Some changes of note include the commission officially allowing electronic drink menus, as well as creating guidelines for what’s required for directional signs in hotels under a change in the law that allows guests at resorts and hotels to carry a drink from a bar or restaurant back to their room, Schmitt said.

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• Editor's Pick

In Photos: Dean Khurana’s 10-Year Tenure

In the email announcing his departure in June 2025 after more than a decade Harvard’s top administration, Rakesh Khurana wrote that serving as dean of the College “has been one of the greatest honors and joys of my life.”

While Khurana’s tenure was marked by backlash surrounding his efforts to combat final clubs and discipline pro-Palestine student protesters, the dean is also known by undergraduates for his frequent presence in dining halls and Harvard Yard, where he often stops students to take a selfie for his widely popular Instagram page.

Khurana, who is the longest-serving dean of Harvard College in more than a century, wrote in his email that what he will miss most “are the daily interactions I have been so privileged to have with our wonderful undergraduates.” In this photo essay, The Crimson looks back on some of the highlights of Khurana’s tenure.

Newly appointed College Dean Rakesh Khurana sits down at lunchtime to chat with freshmen in Annenberg Hall in October 2014. In a Crimson interview that year, Khurana said he spent three-fourths of his time talking to students.

Khurana speaks on behalf of protesters holding a silent demonstration during the Dec. 2014 Primal Scream , a biannual naked run around Harvard Yard. The protesters were attempting to hold a four-and-a-half minute period of silence before the run for Michael Brown of Ferguson, Mo. and Eric Garner of New York, two unarmed Black men who were killed by white police officers earlier that year. Khurana and other administrators were present, and Khurana attempted to quiet the students with a megaphone — at one point on the shoulders of a half-naked man.

Khurana joins students throwing paint powder as part of a 2015 Holi celebration. Holi is an Indian celebration of spring where participants douse each other with vibrant colors. Dharma, Harvard’s Hindu Student Association, hosts an annual Holi celebration.

As part of the 2015 Arts First festival in May, faculty members joined members of the Hasty Pudding Theatricals in a parody performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Above, Khurana, playing the Prince, prepares to kill the Sorcerer, played by professor Steven A. Pinker.

Anthony J. W. Kenny '20 and Sebastian A. Schwartz '20 carry Khurana on their shoulders through the stands of the Yale Bowl during the 2017 playing of The Game .

Khurana shares a laugh with President Joe Biden during Biden's speech at the 2017 Class Day Exercises.

“Me and the Dean in one place—it’s time to break the internet,” Biden cracked, alluding to his and Khurana’s online fame before pausing to snap a selfie with the dean.

Khurana is held up by two Cabot House students during early-morning Housing Day festivities in March 2018. Khurana and his wife Stephanie R. Khurana served as Cabot House faculty deans from 2010 to 2020.

Khurana wears a mask during a January 2022 interview with The Crimson. Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra praised Khurana for his leadership throughout the Covid-19 pandemic following his announcement that he was stepping down .

During the 2022 Commencement Exercises, Khurana holds up a photo he took of students to ask permission to post it on his Instagram page. Khurana is known by undergraduates for frequently posting selfies with students on Instagram, which is known among the student body as the “Khuranagram.”

In November 2023, students from Harvard Hillel and Harvard Chabad assembled a roughly 200-foot Shabbat table running the length of Tercentenary Theatre as a tribute to the civilians, soldiers, and foreigners held captive by Hamas. Khurana joined gatherings at the table in the morning and afternoon, conversing with visitors and supporters, and helping students disassemble the table at sundown.

Throughout the 20-day pro-Palestine encampment in Harvard Yard during the spring semester, Khurana was a frequent visitor, leaving his office in University Hall to observe students at a distance. Above, Khurana watches protesters on the third day of the encampment as they chanted “Dean Khurana you can’t hide, you are funding genocide.”

Khurana listens to speakers at the 2024 Class Day in May. Several student speakers made references to the 13 seniors barred from graduating due to their participation in the pro-Palestine encampment. Khurana was deemed responsible by some students and faculty members for the decision, which was overturned in July by the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body.

In his own Class Day speech, Khurana largely avoided referencing the sanctions, but described the present as “a pivotal moment in history” of determining “whether an institution devoted to the pursuit of truth, veritas, can remain free from internal or external coercion.”

“We have to find common ground, and we have to remain open to changing our minds,” he said.