July 30, 2026
Below is a short story I wrote six years ago in the hellish early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although it’s fiction, I believe it captures that moment and the mindset of the deniers who were already up in arms about restrictions.
Those times are worth remembering in the wake of Senate Republicans’ deranged attack on Dr. Anthony Fauci. Picking apart his private diaries won’t solve the mystery of how the virus was created. It sure doesn’t help us understand what we did right and wrong in trying to protect ourselves and save lives.
By the end of July in 2020, our country had already recorded over four million cases and 150,000 deaths, with 1,000 more of us dying every day. Everybody did their best to cope with this raging killer, the likes of which we hadn’t seen for a hundred years. Personally, I was as scared as hell, but unlike these made-up characters, I believed in science and the common good. I hope we can all do that next time.