The Covid-19 pandemic did not only kill more than four million people globally in 2020, it also shut down social and economic activity as governments across the world announced national lockdowns and travel bans. While mortality and morbidity statistics reflect the tragic death toll of the pandemic and the collapse of gross domestic products reveal its dire economic consequences, far less is known about what ordinary people thought, felt and experienced at the onset of this extraordinary period. In March of 2020, I instructed my Economics 281 students to keep a daily diary. The instruction was based on a tweet the American literary critic and biographer Ruth Franklin had posted a week earlier:
Life under lockdown
Life under lockdown
Life under lockdown
The Covid-19 pandemic did not only kill more than four million people globally in 2020, it also shut down social and economic activity as governments across the world announced national lockdowns and travel bans. While mortality and morbidity statistics reflect the tragic death toll of the pandemic and the collapse of gross domestic products reveal its dire economic consequences, far less is known about what ordinary people thought, felt and experienced at the onset of this extraordinary period. In March of 2020, I instructed my Economics 281 students to keep a daily diary. The instruction was based on a tweet the American literary critic and biographer Ruth Franklin had posted a week earlier: