This story appeared in the July/August 2020 issue as "The Learning Curve." Subscribe to Discover magazine for more stories like this.
We were flying blind.
The red alerts flashed from Wuhan to Lombardy to Seattle, yet the first COVID-19 cases in early March in New York City prompted an official reaction that suggested the virus had traveled by asteroid, not by human daisy chain. None of the patients in our emergency department had traveled to China or been around someone diagnosed with COVID-19. There was no clamor to broaden testing, no rush to rethink the model of contagion, no clarion to immediately shut down.
Reality hit in stages, like a plane lurching through air pockets.
