Short Pieces for Long Days:
A SARS-Cov-2 Medical Humanities Reader
Articles, essays and art
Curated by: David Elkin, MD, MSL from UCSF
davidelkin@comcast.net
(Selections do not represent the views of SFGH or UCSF)
Historical Perspectives
Bugs and people: when epidemics change history:
https://hekint.org/2018/03/15/
Samuel Pepys, Plague of 1665:
https://www.laphamsquarterly.
Plague cure link to contemporary drink:
The 1700s Plague Cure That Inspired an Uncannily Contemporary Cocktail
Cholera epidemic in London, Steven Johnson telling the story of John Snow. Ghost Map: How the “ghost map” helped end a killer disease
Semmelweis and the power of hand-washing:
Origins of the term “quarantine,” Mary Mallon (“Typhoid Mary”) (Science Diction podcast):
Short film: 1918 influenza epidemic (Cambridge University):
Spanish Flu: a warning from history
Impacts of 1918 Pandemic on Public Health, Healthcare System Organization, Health Policies: How the 1918 Flu Pandemic Revolutionized Public Health | History
The 1918 flu pandemic and WWI: Competing memories:
Katherine Anne Porter and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic
Historical perspectives on viral vaccine development (including comparisons of influenza, zika, ebola, etc) How to Stop a Lethal Virus | Science
What Can Images of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Teach Us About COVID-19?
Images from the National Archives Catalog show striking parallels to today’s crisis, from masks to emergency hospitals.
Mary Mallon (“Typhoid Mary”) revisited
Awful Moments In Quarantine History: Remember Typhoid Mary?
How Infectious Disease Defined the American Bathroom:
The War Against Coronavirus Comes to the Bathroom
HIV, SARS-CoV-2 and San Francisco: Two epidemics: https://www.sfchronicle.com/
First deaths from Covid-19 in the US:
The first 1,000: Who the U.S.’s first victims were and what we’ve learned
Challenges facing journalists as they recognize they are writing a rough draft of history:
Literature
NYReview of Books Pandemic journal: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/
The role of the humanities (Netscape: “Yes, There Is a Role for Poetry and Fiction in a Pandemic” Robert Harrington and Abraham Verghese): https://www.medscape.com/
Writers (Atwood and St. John) who described pandemics in fiction:
Culture – The plague writers who predicted today
The Exquisite Pain of Reading in Quarantine:
Quarantine Book Clubs Reminded Me to Read
Poetry
Isolation and Stress
Isolation and stress: How will humans, by nature social animals, fare when isolated?
Psychology: An astronaut’s guide to surviving isolation
An astronaut’s guide to surviving isolation
Psychology: Astronaut, antarctic explorers and climbers on isolation
Living an isolated life: Astronauts, Antarctic doctors and climbers share their advice
This American Life Podcast, Episode 698, The Test: Act 1: The Inside Game The Test
“Welcome to Seclusion” by Sergio Benvenuto Published in Italian on Antinomie:
https://antinomie.it/index.
Navigating relationships in isolation:
How to maintain relationships in self-isolation
Social Issues/Impact
Psychological tips for maintaining social relationships during lockdown:
Hidden suffering of coronavirus: Stigma, blaming, shaming:
Hidden suffering of coronavirus: Stigma, blaming, shaming
The Dangerous History of Immunoprivilege
Fear among the disabled:
People With Disabilities Worry They Won’t Get Treatment
Changing conceptions of disability and the pandemic:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/
Evolving social mores: what to do when someone violates social distancing:
German zoo may have to feed animals to each otherHow do morgues and pathologists handle the surge in dead bodies:
Health Care Inequity in COVID-19 infection and mortality
Higher death rate from Covid-19 in African Americans:
‘It’s a racial justice issue’: Black Americans are dying in greater numbers from Covid-19
and The Pandemic Will Cleave America in Two
Social inequity and the COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S.:
https://slate.com/technology/
and
‘It’s a racial justice issue’: Black Americans are dying in greater numbers from Covid-19
and
Racial Bias Showing Up In Coronavirus Testing And Treatment : Shots – Health News
and
and:
Racism, poverty and the high incidence of Covid-19 in Detroit:
How racism and poverty made Detroit a new coronavirus hot spot
Covid-19 and the state of health care in the US:
Coronavirus is revealing how broken America’s economy really is
Pollution drops during lockdown:
‘It’s positively alpine!’: Disbelief in big cities as air pollution falls
The Geography of Coronavirus:
What We Know About Density and Covid-19’s Spread
A lot of people don’t know they should stay home:
Technology will save us. Or will it?
When will the economy turn around? The coronavirus recession, explained.
Privacy and surveillance:
Mental Health Impact
Lockdowns, stress and domestic violence:
Global Lockdowns Resulting In ‘Horrifying Surge’ In Domestic Violence, U.N. Warns
Pandemics and serious mental illness:
The Arts
Picturing Disease:
Little Demons, Death And Biting Dogs: How We Picture Disease
Photography and the epidemic:
20 photographs of the week | Art and design
How do you make the case for art and artists during the pandemic?
In a Pandemic, How Do You Make the Case for an Art Emergency?
Covid-19: Street artists take on the pandemic:
Street Artists Take On Coronavirus Pandemic With Powerful, Poignant And Witty Pieces
More work from street artists:
New Yorker cover: “After the shift”
Owen Smith’s “After the Shift”
Video: Ohio PSA about the effects of social distancing and flattening the curve:
https://digg.com/video/a-
And how they filmed it:
Mousetrap PSA Nails Importance Of Social Distancing In The Snappiest Way
Art from past pandemics:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
Plague in art:
Plague in Art: 10 Paintings You Should Know in the Times of Coronavirus
Art re-enactments at home:
Instagram challenge sparks hilarious submission of painting reenactments
And: https://www.sadanduseless.com/
And: People are Recreating Classic Paintings as Hilarious Photos in Quarantine
Ending lockdown in Wuhan (photos):
Lessons from Ebola: Health care providers pin photos of their face to their gown to connect with their patients:
A Photo Project Helps Mitigate Patient Loneliness During COVID-19 Pandemic
Children’s books, re-imagined:
‘Gruffalo stayed in the cave’: Axel Scheffler and Julia Donaldson’s coronavirus cartoons
Why the Covid-19 epidemic is so hard to model, explained in comics:
A Comic Strip Tour Of The Wild World Of Pandemic Modeling
Politics and Public Health
2017 piece wondering if America was ready for a pandemic:
Is America Ready for a Global Pandemic?
And it turns out we weren’t–a public health lesson for future generations:
Trump ignored coronavirus warnings from experts for months
More on the public health failure to contain SARS-CoV-2 during early 2020:
He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
The role of political leadership:
Reflections
New York Review of Books Pandemic Journal: Pandemic Journal, March 23–29
Leslie Jamison on single parenting during the pandemic: ‘Since I Became Symptomatic’
Breaking up in a pandemic:
Getting Dumped During A Pandemic
Of dogs and people in the pandemic
Of dogs and their humans: Late life in a more-than-human world of the COVID-19 pandemic
Stephen King on why he’s sorry that you feel like you’re stuck in one of his horror novels:
Stephen King Is Sorry You Feel Like You’re Stuck In A Stephen King Novel
Tom Perrotta (author of The Leftovers) on epidemics, religion and meaning: Tom Perrotta on ‘The Leftovers’ and how we behave in times of fear and loss
Short video: A brief meditation on humanity, the environment, and the pandemic: https://youtu.be/f5on3AZWdik
The Wolves of Stanislav: An Improbably True Parable for the Pandemic Age by Paul Auster https://lithub.com/the-wolves-
The Nocturnists podcast:
The Nocturnists on Apple Podcasts
Video diary of a NYC EM physician:
Inside a New York ER where the hallways are filled with covid-19 patients | Voices from the Pandemic
Hospital Chaplains During the Coronavirus Pandemic:
Here in spirit: oral history of faith amid a pandemic:
Adapting to the new normal:
The Road” Wakley Prize winner (Lancet): https://www.thelancet.com/
Parts of Idaho experienced an early surge in cases:
Ethics and Professional Identity
NY Magazine on ethical choices with COVID-19 patients and possible PTSD in health care providers (moral distress): ACA Architect Ezekiel Emanuel on Coronavirus Triage Ethics
“Making the Call” Podcast with Zeke Emmanuel and Jonathan Moreno on COVID-19 and ethics: Making the Call on Apple Podcasts
When your spouse works in the ED: open.https://slate.com/human-
Emergency room physician loses custody of her four year old due to Covid fears:
An ER doctor loses custody of daughter because of coronavirus fears
Professional identity: dealing with work/home balance (graphic art)
The bittersweet wait for coronavirus to bring its death and suffering
Malm, Heidi, Thomas May, Leslie P. Francis, Saad B. Omer, Daniel A. Salmon & Robert Hood. “Ethics, Pandemics, and the Duty to Treat, The American Journal of Bioethics (2008), 8:8, 4-19, DOI: 10.1080/15265160802317974 Full text available via Taylor and Francis Online.
Should medical students continue their training during the epidemic?
Should Medical Students Continue Clinical Rotations During the COVID-19 Pandemic?
And a rejoinder:
Medical Ethics in the Time of COVID-19: A Call for Critical Reflection
Ethics, Covid-19, and moral injury:
Psychology, Coping, Vulnerability and Risk
Coping with the stress of the pandemic:
Medical anthropologist on why we wear masks:
Opinion | The Social Life of Coronavirus Masks
Counterphobic reactions to danger (an ironic face mask design comment):
Using an ‘Alien’ Facehugger As a Protective Face Mask
Why do so many people believe in SARS-CoV-2 conspiracy theories?
5G Conspiracy Theories: Pressure of a pandemic brings old fears of new wireless tech into the
Celebs share rumors linking 5G to coronavirus, nutjobs burn cell towers
The illusion of perfect protection:
Math and appreciating risk:
What numbers can we trust, and which should ignore?
Coronavirus statistics: what can we trust and what should we ignore?
Protecting yourself from disinformation:
https://theconversation.com/4-
The rise of false hopes and hydroxychloroquine:
Looking Ahead
How Covid-19 is remaking social relationships, ethics and history:
Coronavirus: How COVID-19 is changing the world – Monash Lens
Who Will We Be This Time Next Year? On Pandemic Times and the Life to Come
André Aciman: Who Will We Be This Time Next Year?
What if Covid-19 Returns Every Year, Like the Common Cold?
How will the Covid-19 epidemic end?
https://www.theatlantic.com/
The difficulty of modeling the epidemic:
Why It’s So Freaking Hard To Make A Good COVID-19 Model
More about forecasting the end of the pandemic:
Pandemic offers a chance to remake cities:
(Economics) Where we could go from here?:
Pandemic Response Requires Post-Growth Economic Thinking
Humor
The FIRST lines of 10 classic novels, rewritten for social distancing:
The first lines of 10 classic novels, rewritten for social distancing.
The LAST lines of 10 classic novels, rewritten for social distancing:
Okay, now the LAST lines of 10 classic novels, rewritten for social distancing.
Film in the age of COVID-19:
Nature is healing/We are the virus meme:
The Coronavirus “Nature Is Healing” Meme’s Backstory
Links to Other Syllabi
Northeastern University Coronavirus Humanities Reader:
https://docs.google.com/
A crowdsourced cross-disciplinary resource:
*Adapting ANTH101 Challenges for Covid-19 (Cultural Anthropology for Everyone). Michael Wesch (2008 U.S. Professor of Year), University of Kansas State, USA
*Archaeology of Epidemics Syllabus, University of Washington
*Assignment: A Day in the Life of a Pandemic: COVID-19 Assignment, Natalia Molina, University of Southern California.
*Bibliography: Coronaviruses • SARS • MERS • COVID-19
*Care in Uncertain Times Syllabus, Limited Open-Access Books from Duke University Press.
*#coronavirussyllabusk12 (K-12 Teaching Resources)
*Disability Justice Framework COVID-19 Resources
*Economic History Review Limited Open-Access articles on Epidemics, Disease and Mortality in Economic History
*Ethics Resources on the Coronavirus (COVID-19), The Hastings Center.
*Feminist Resources on the Pandemic, Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy (UK)
*Humanities Coronavirus Syllabus
*Lessons from Ebola: Preventing the Next Pandemic (free online course from Harvard via edX)
*NBER Collection on Economic and Other Consequences of Previous Epidemics, National Bureau of Economic Research.
*Politics of Plague Course Syllabus, Patricia Stapelton, Social Science and Policy Studies Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
*Public Collection of COVID-19 Citations, Yale University Medical Library
*Queering the Pandemic Syllabus
*Teaching Coronavirus—Sociological Syllabus Project
*Teaching COVID-19: A Collaborative Anthropology Syllabus Project, Teaching and Learning Anthropology Journal.