Quarantine Stories

If you would have asked people on New Year's Eve 2020 what 'quarantine' exactly meant, few people would be able to give you a detailed and accurate, personal account as the same question would trigger in May 2020.

The stories that people tell about their experiences with the Coronavirus are immensely important to understand how this pandemic impacts their daily life, their world, their being, and therefore, their choices and their behavior.

This page is dedicated to some stories from the quarantine. It is organized by theme. Feel free to add themes, and to share your observations, where possible with references of the sources. And please feel free to reflect on what this means for future interventions.

Maintaining productivity

• An Italian Cancer Researcher describes the impact that the lockdown has on the scientific work: "Of course, we cannot stay productive like this on lockdown for more than two months, and I really hope that journal editors and granting agencies will understand that this is an emergency and maybe consider that we’ve had to slow down and cannot, for example, present preliminary data."
  • "During this period, I finally have time to write reviews. And I have realized that the right software makes the difference."

• "The trams are empty, but the laboratories in our unit are currently full of young researchers behind masks. They have their experimental animals to follow, their projects to carry on, their patients waiting for answers. 'There is not only COVID-19; all other pathologies cannot wait' — this is what I hear when I invite them to slow down their experiments."