What Does Modern Love Mean in a Pandemic?

Times Insider

At first we thought the column could be a break from the coronavirus. A flood of submissions told us that wasn’t possible.

By Daniel Jones and Miya Lee

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

The essays that appear in Modern Love don’t typically reflect the current news cycle. As the journalists who manage the column, we view Modern Love (along with its 100-word version, Tiny Love Stories) as “counterprogramming” — the kind of story readers turn to when they need a break from the news. As the coronavirus bore down on the United States, we didn’t expect that to change much. We even talked about how providing a distraction from the news might be more important than ever.

We were wrong.

Like many, we didn’t grasp how long the coronavirus crisis would last and how dramatically it would demand the world’s attention. (We were more concerned with giving our office plants extra water, not realizing that we would be gone for months, not weeks.) An early clue of the coming coronavirus dominance was how quickly our submissions shifted from a trickle of stories about the virus in early March to a flood by month’s end, with 78 of them even sharing the same title: “Love in the Time of Coronavirus.”

The inbox for Tiny Love Stories changed, too. We experienced a surge in submissions to both features that went way beyond our already strained capacity to read them all. Normally our process is first come first served, which means we’re reading essays that were submitted months earlier. But we began turning first to what had come in recently, because so much of what had come before the pandemic read like tales of yesteryear, a world where dating and romance involved strange behaviors like hugging, kissing and even sex.

What was love in this new world? Care-taking? Confinement? Nudity on Zoom? We weren’t sure. Mike Baker, a Times reporter who covered the early outbreak in Seattle, sent along an essay from a doctor on the front lines of the pandemic, James Kuo, who had written movingly about being separated from his family as he risked his life to save others. Normally it takes weeks or even months for a submission to be discovered, edited, filed and published. James’s essay was in print five days later.

Our selection process for Tiny Love Stories similarly accelerated. We raced to find and publish submissions as soon as they arrived, including stories about college students’ anxiety about leaving campus and a grandmother whose Covid-19 death could not be memorialized in a funeral. As with Modern Love, these accounts illuminated disparate pieces of a collective, worldwide experience.

Our Modern Love podcast, which features actors reading essays from our archive, would have to be different. Actors were nervous about going to studios to record, and then studios began to close. Our partner, WBUR in Boston, also sent its staff home, meaning our producer and sound technician were suddenly without offices and equipment.

Like so many, they learned to improvise, sending a mic to Daniel Radcliffe, who used it to tape a gorgeous reading in his closet. Laura Prepon did the same. Soon, our postscript commentary was also being recorded in closets, which make great sound studios. You probably have no idea how many top-tier podcasts are now being produced amid hanging shirts and dirty laundry.

These days we ask, as nearly everyone does: How long will this last? What’s next? Seven weeks since this pandemic overtook our work and lives, changing so much so rapidly, we are beginning to sense a shift in mood in the submissions, both a settling in for the long haul and an impatience about getting on with life. Those may seem to be opposite impulses, and they are, but they lead to a similar place: a slight weakening of the virus’s stranglehold on the kinds of stories we receive and publish.

Maybe we’re all going to remain six feet apart for months to come, but that doesn’t mean our love stories have to involve screens and face masks. Because love never really changes much; that’s the great thing about it. It will remain as glorious and confounding as always. We may be frozen in place for the time being, but soon enough we’ll again be breaking up face-to-face and ravishing each other in the flesh. And some of you — fewer than now, we hope — will still be writing about it.

Daniel Jones is the editor of Modern Love. Miya Lee is the Modern Love projects assistant.

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Updated April 11, 2020

If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

This is a difficult question, because a lot depends on how well the virus is contained. A better question might be: “How will we know when to reopen the country?” In an American Enterprise Institute report, Scott Gottlieb, Caitlin Rivers, Mark B. McClellan, Lauren Silvis and Crystal Watson staked out four goal posts for recovery: Hospitals in the state must be able to safely treat all patients requiring hospitalization, without resorting to crisis standards of care; the state needs to be able to at least test everyone who has symptoms; the state is able to conduct monitoring of confirmed cases and contacts; and there must be a sustained reduction in cases for at least 14 days.

The Times Neediest Cases Fund has started a special campaign to help those who have been affected, which accepts donations here. Charity Navigator, which evaluates charities using a numbers-based system, has a running list of nonprofits working in communities affected by the outbreak. You can give blood through the American Red Cross, and World Central Kitchen has stepped in to distribute meals in major cities. More than 30,000 coronavirus-related GoFundMe fund-raisers have started in the past few weeks. (The sheer number of fund-raisers means more of them are likely to fail to meet their goal, though.)

The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.

If you’re sick and you think you’ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C. recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’s a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’re asymptomatic, for instance — you won’t be able to get tested.

It seems to spread very easily from person to person, especially in homes, hospitals and other confined spaces. The pathogen can be carried on tiny respiratory droplets that fall as they are coughed or sneezed out. It may also be transmitted when we touch a contaminated surface and then touch our face.

No. Clinical trials are underway in the United States, China and Europe. But American officials and pharmaceutical executives have said that a vaccine remains at least 12 to 18 months away.

Unlike the flu, there is no known treatment or vaccine, and little is known about this particular virus so far. It seems to be more lethal than the flu, but the numbers are still uncertain. And it hits the elderly and those with underlying conditions — not just those with respiratory diseases — particularly hard.

If the family member doesn’t need hospitalization and can be cared for at home, you should help him or her with basic needs and monitor the symptoms, while also keeping as much distance as possible, according to guidelines issued by the C.D.C. If there’s space, the sick family member should stay in a separate room and use a separate bathroom. If masks are available, both the sick person and the caregiver should wear them when the caregiver enters the room. Make sure not to share any dishes or other household items and to regularly clean surfaces like counters, doorknobs, toilets and tables. Don’t forget to wash your hands frequently.

Plan two weeks of meals if possible. But people should not hoard food or supplies. Despite the empty shelves, the supply chain remains strong. And remember to wipe the handle of the grocery cart with a disinfecting wipe and wash your hands as soon as you get home.

Yes, but make sure you keep six feet of distance between you and people who don’t live in your home. Even if you just hang out in a park, rather than go for a jog or a walk, getting some fresh air, and hopefully sunshine, is a good idea.

That’s not a good idea. Even if you’re retired, having a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds so that your money keeps up with inflation, or even grows, makes sense. But retirees may want to think about having enough cash set aside for a year’s worth of living expenses and big payments needed over the next five years.

Watching your balance go up and down can be scary. You may be wondering if you should decrease your contributions — don’t! If your employer matches any part of your contributions, make sure you’re at least saving as much as you can to get that “free money.”