In distributing the coronavirus vaccines to healthcare workers, patients, and the public, Harvard’s hospitals and researchers have looked for ways to counter historic inequities. The solutions they come up with could be key to ending the coronavirus pandemic — in Massachusetts and around the world.
While Harvard students study in the same libraries and learn in the same lecture halls during normal times, the coronavirus pandemic has done away with those shared academic resources, highlighting inequalities that previously existed within the student body.
Before the coronavirus pandemic, Harvard Square was a center of activity, bustling with people shopping, eating, and admiring the historic buildings of Harvard’s campus. When the pandemic began, the Square took a hit — the stream of tourists slowed, and almost all students departed campus by March 15, 2020. Besides the loss of customers, non-essential businesses, such as salons, shut down to comply with state orders from the Massachusetts government. Now, a year after students initially departed from campus, the Square is still weathering the effects of the ongoing pandemic.
“I think it's been hard for us in terms of the Ivy League schools, our basketball product hasn't been available for them to see,” Eskildsen said. “But ... if anything, I think people recognize how quick the Ivy League was to cancel the tournament back last year. And I think seeing that for putting the players and their health and safety first and foremost is a positive.”
Mathematics associate senior lecturer Dusty E. Grundmeier first noticed headlines circulating about the novel coronavirus at the start of the spring 2020 semester. He immediately became concerned that the spreading virus would drastically alter the course of the spring semester.
During November alone, I watched “Twilight” six times. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone, but it was the only thing that made me feel good. I couldn’t explain it.
I have also watched, uninterrupted, as they grew through cat adolescence. I can’t see their ribs when they breathe anymore, and there is a new fleshiness to their jowls that I press my fingers into when I scratch their chins.