Early on and throughout the pandemic, there have been lots of nice “We’re in this together“, “Humans have survived worse“-type messages of positivity mixed with advice to not watch too much news, not to think too darkly, not to worry about things beyond your control. These mostly came from sincere places – trying to protect […]
Perhaps like no other profession on earth, librarians are dedicated to providing others with factual, accurate information across an incredibly broad range of subjects (if you’re a Dewey fan, you might think of it as us covering from 000 to 999 – basically the full range of human knowledge!) So one of the toughest things […]
During the current pandemic, RN doesn’t just stand for “Registered Nurse” – it stand for *Required* Nurse and our frontline healthcare workers are going above and beyond in the battle against COVID-19 in hospitals, testing sites and other locations around the world. I’m so proud to be married to a nurse who fills this vital […]
It’s amazing how the hospital can be both the location for some of the happiest moments of people’s lives (births of children, news about diseases being beaten and bones being healed) and some of the worst (a loved one doesn’t make it after an accident, grandma’s last breaths on the palliative care ward, the diagnosis […]
Yes, the *next* mass pandemic. We dodged the bullet a few times with recent outbreaks like SARS, H1N1, Ebola, etc. But some very smart people foresaw that a devastating worldwide pandemic was inevitable due to the increasing number of viruses that were reaching humans. This is the result of a combination of humans aggressively moving […]
Of course my hope is that as many people as possible come out of this pandemic unharmed as possible. But I can’t help but note the rich irony that the virus is most likely to affect people who least believe in science, non-religious authorities, and who are the most susceptible to misinformation and false narratives. […]
Thursday March 12, 2020… Wednesday March 18, 2020… (Apparently we can now wipe with Alphabits!?!) 😉
Great rewrite! “It’s The End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) – COVID-19 Remix” – R.E.M.
As a fan of dystopian literature, it’s still shocking how quickly we’ve gotten to this point. Within a couple months of COVID-19 appearing, we’ve shut down billion dollar sports leagues, concerts, schools, libraries and more. I’ve been thinking a lot about the differences between a panicked response, a prepared response and a proactive response and […]
With apologies to Daniel Dafoe, some scenes from the past few days… Busy disinfecting everything in the house… I *love* my library’s “In the News” display. It’s been a huge hit with how timely and responsive it is and our COVID-themed display was no exception (yes, I know some of those “boost your immunity” books […]
