I can’t believe I am writing this. Again. I can’t believe I’m sobbing for my country. Again. Almost a month after the $2 trillion stimulus bill was passed, and we’re all still fucked.

Last Wednesday, $1,200 economic impact payments went out to about 80 million Americans. Those checks surely helped lots of people buy groceries, pay their rent, or whatever other things they haven’t been able to do since they lost their jobs in March. But another 70 million Americans haven’t gotten their money, rent is due AGAIN in another ten days, and nothing has changed.

Another stimulus package was…

The South African Government has recently been praised around the world for their swift and decisive action towards containing this pandemic that has overwhelmed the healthcare systems of so many countries. With under a thousand cases, they closed their borders and ordered a total and complete lockdown. They banned anything and everything deemed “non-essential” from puzzles and gardening supplies to can openers and extension cords. Thankfully, they have walked back restrictions on the latter two. Seriously, though, why can’t we have puzzles?

But along with the restrictions against jogging, dog walking, and leaving your house for anything but groceries or…

This week, 60 Minutes did a segment on a segment of our population that has recently exploded: the unemployed. More than 17 million jobless claims have been filed in the three weeks since the nation closed many of its doors, and more are sure to come. Some estimates see 32% of the country facing unemployment at the worst of this. That’s 47 million people.

What struck me in watching these interviews was the consistent narrative of these first-time filers: I’m not the kind of person who would ever apply for unemployment. We have been raised to believe that those people…

I guess somehow in all of this, I have made it my mission to be as informed as possible about the impact of this disease and what our country is doing to help those affected by it. Not those hospitalized or in critical condition (as a writer, there isn’t anything I can do there), but the millions upon millions of vulnerable citizens in our country who are ever just one small emergency away from hunger or homelessness — many of whom had jobs a month ago, but are now suddenly facing eviction. And not less so, the tens of millions…

As I continue to sift through dozens of stories each day on the pandemic ravaging hospitals and economies around the world, as I watch our leader (and his army of tribalist conspiracy theorists) decry the wisdom of experts in favor of ignorant grandstanding, I am forced to come to terms with how exactly we got here.

COVID-19 is a vicious disease caused by a highly infectious virus that spreads silently and insidiously through seemingly healthy people. It kills at likely 10 times the rate of the seasonal flu, and has already taken the lives of over 40,000 people worldwide. That…

The past few days I have been consumed with news from Senate and the House about what kind of relief the richest country in the world would be providing for its strangely unwealthy citizens. But every article I read seemed to gloss over these massive numbers — $500 billion for corporations, $377 billion for small businesses — without explaining how any of it would work.

Do small business loans need to be repaid? What about the freeze on federal mortgage payments? …

I want to start by saying that I am not a doctor. I am not a nurse or a scientist or an economist or even a journalist or politician. I am a freelance writer and editor who, like so many others out there I’m sure, has spent the past week at home on the couch reading literally hundreds of articles on every aspect of this virulent disease and its impact. It’s almost an understatement to say it has consumed me.

I have read scientific reports, economic reports, and opinion pieces by the truckload. I have searched desperately for any new…