The coronavirus has seeped into places far from the national spotlight.
“My mom said the guy at the plant said they had to work to feed America. But my mom was sick,” said one of Ms. Grant’s sons, Willie Martin, 34, a teacher in South Carolina. He said he watched on his phone as his mother took her last breath.
He watched on his phone while his mother died amid strangers and machines. I was present at the deaths of both my parents. I was lucky that way. These were profoundly moving, nearly sacred, moments. Nobody should have to watch on their telephone while their mother dies amid strangers and machines.
While all the attention is being paid to the effects of the pandemic in big cities, and to the criminally irresponsible — and, possibly, the irresponsibly criminal — response from the federal government, the coronavirus has seeped into places far from the national spotlight. Attention is only now being focused on the incredible disparities in the infection rate — and the death rate — between white Americans and minority Americans, and between rich Americans and poor Americans. (Typically, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Ayanna Pressley were out ahead of field on this.) This has brought attention to the small places in which the pandemic is having a devastating impact. Native Americans on reservations are garrisoning themselves as best they can. The country’s prisons have become nightmarish incubators, with the virus ping-ponging around captive populations until governors like Andy Beshear in Kentucky decide that the safest thing is to let low-level inmates out…
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