In a National desk project, people across the country describe, in their own words, how the pandemic has transformed the way they live, work and think.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.The pandemic has reshaped our reality. To gain a better understanding of this transformation, Elizabeth Dias and Audra D. S. Burch, correspondents for the National desk, recently spoke with people across the country about their own experiences. They posted a callout to readers online, conducted interviews to hear from a range of voices and collected these accounts in the article “Who We Are Now.” Ms. Dias and Ms. Burch shared what they learned in their reporting and how they, themselves, have changed during this time. Read a lightly edited excerpt below.How did this story come about?ELIZABETH DIAS Over the past year, I have been reporting on the crisis of spirit that the pandemic has wrought. People everywhere have had to confront mortality and the deepest questions humans have about life, death and suffering. The editor of the National desk, Jia Lynn Yang, and I talk often about what it all means, and this story grew from one of those conversations into a collaboration with Audra and our photo editor Heather Casey. The theme of transformation is a deeply spiritual one, and we wanted to hear from people who are living differently now and could share those stories with us.How did you work with photography for this story?DIAS It was a collaboration from the very start. Art can give voice to moments in our lives when words fail. The images and words together offer a journey for readers to reflect on their own lives.What were you looking for in your callout to readers?AUDRA D. S. BURCH We tried to frame the questions in a way that would force people to ponder what this year has meant to them, in obvious and not-so-obvious ways. I think even the exercise of responding to the callout was its own journey. Some people were clearly grappling with who they had become in a year’s time and, in coming out of the “darkness,” what they wanted for themselves. I can’t tell you how many people thanked us for exploring what the pandemic has conjured. Probably midway through reading the entries, I remember thinking, in some ways, this really feels like a public service.What did you find most interesting about the responses?DIAS So many people found the process of reflection enormously hard, or even impossible. It revealed to me just how difficult it is to face feelings, much less to change as a result of them, and how little collective language there is to help us talk about these deep issues. Realizing that helped me to think about how this story might help readers through that process.BURCH I think I was most surprised by the bookends, the people willing to reveal their deepest thoughts and experiences on one end of the spectrum and the people who — even though they were participating — were clearly in a kind of private holding pattern and unwilling or unable to process the pandemic’s emotional or spiritual toll.Were there certain themes that you heard again and again?DIAS So many people were wrestling with home, wanting to return to the central core of who they are and where they are from. Over and over, people were re-evaluating their most important relationships, where they want to live, and how they want to be in the world.What changes do you think we will see as a result of this time?DIAS The most honest answer is, I don’t know. I hope we will be able to remember the shared humanity that this year has revealed, and help one another on that journey. But it is also true that the clarity that comes with intense suffering often clouds as time moves on — it is a reason we did this story, to name the transformation visible in this moment.BURCH I think the great challenge is how long we can hang on to the clarity that such an event brought and how long the truths we discovered this year will shape our lives.Was there anything you often thought about in the course of working on this story?BURCH I thought about death. A lot. One of the people I interviewed for the story was Joelle Wright-Terry. She is a Covid survivor. Her husband died of Covid last April. Her story stayed with me. I thought often of what it must feel like to have your family crushed by this virus and the enduring trauma of loss.DIAS I often thought about narratives of apocalypse and awakening in spiritual literature, and how woven they are with suffering. So often, beings had to die to be reborn, like the phoenix, the ancient bird that burst into flames and then rose from the ashes.How have you, personally, changed during this time?DIAS One of the most amazing things in doing all these interviews was hearing echoes of my feelings in the stories of so many other people, with so many different life experiences, from anger to loneliness to newfound strength. It helped me feel less alone, and to take heart.BURCH The process of working on this story offered its own kind of comfort. I also saw myself in so many of the narratives shared, from feeling afraid to feeling helpless to feeling unmoored as we trudged through the pandemic month after month.

Behind the Byline • APOORVA MANDAVILLIMaking the Science of Covid ClearerBehind some of The Times’s vital journalism on the coronavirus is a reporter who speaks seven languages, holds a master’s degree in biochemistry and, OK, has a weakness for “Bridgerton.”March 25, 2021Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.As a science reporter for The New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli knows the world of research, labs and technical papers. It’s helpful that she’s trained in science, with a master’s degree in biochemistry. She brings that knowledge to her current beat: Covid-19, including the immune response to the coronavirus and the variants that have emerged.Here, she talks about when she realized she didn’t want to be a research scientist, what it’s like to send her own kids back to school and her favorite lowbrow television.How did you start working as a science reporter?I went to graduate school for biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin, at Madison. I was there for four years, and I would have gotten a Ph.D. if I’d stayed one more year. But I realized that being a lab scientist was just a little too slow, a little too specific and a little too antisocial for me. I went to journalism school at N.Y.U.’s science journalism program, and I’ve been a reporter ever since. My mom is a writer. She’s a poet and a short-story writer, and I’ve been around literature my whole life. So my job has married two very different parts of my brain — science and writing.How do you think your science training influences your work?It’s very helpful in a lot of ways. I’m not writing about biochemistry, so the exact subject matter doesn’t help, but I understand the basics of biology. Much of my career, I’ve actually written for scientists, who can be exacting readers. They want things to be clear, but they never want things dumbed down. That has pushed me to always be accurate.I also think it is helpful to understand the business of science, like how universities operate and how the tenure system works and why scientists are so desperate to publish. All those things help anchor my understanding of where researchers are coming from and what sort of critical lens to have when looking at a paper.Where do your story ideas come from?Every day, I look at all of the research papers and preprints — studies that are released before undergoing the standard peer review process — that have to do with Covid. I scan the long list. Often, I see trends, something that’s emerging that more people are talking about, either on social media or because these papers are coming out.Sometimes, an idea can come from a sentence in somebody else’s article. Sometimes, it can come from reading anything that stirs a question in my mind. For example, my article about whether you still need to wear a mask after you’re vaccinated came about because I wondered that in early December, a few weeks before it became the national obsession.What is the biggest challenge in doing the job?I never have enough time. I have worked mostly as an editor, assigning stories to reporters, so I find it easy to spot stories that I want to write. I’m trying to write as many of them as I can.You previously worked on a website that focused on the autism spectrum. How did that inform your work?That was a site that was intended for scientists, but it was read by a lot of nonscientists as well. I think that’s one of the places where I learned to hone this fine balance of being technically accurate and being clear and simple at the same time. Also, I learned the skill of identifying stories and seeing trends. Autism is a pretty small niche, and we had to be able to spot small and interesting things and be able to develop them into full stories. So I’ve had a lot of practice doing that.You frequently write about the science around the decision to send kids back to school. How are you navigating that in your own life?I have two kids. My son is in middle school, and my daughter is 8. My kids are in school two days a week. Now they do this hybrid schedule, but I know how much they miss being in school full time. I know how much they miss the company of their friends, and I worry for their physical safety, and I worry for their mental health. I understand the parents all over the world who are desperate to have their kids in school.How do you disconnect when your beat is Covid?When I get away from the computer, my kids are right there, demanding my attention, wanting to be read to, fighting, yelling, being annoying and loving. They take up a lot of time. I also watch TV. I am extremely forgiving of my lowbrow tastes. I used to read a lot, and I have not been reading novels at all, which is kind of sad, but I just don’t have the attention span right now. I do a lot of crosswords, and I’m addicted to The Times’s Spelling Bee game.What is your favorite lowbrow television?Well, I really enjoyed “Bridgerton.” There was a period of time last spring when I even watched “The O.C.” for a couple of months.What would readers be surprised to learn about you?Maybe that I speak multiple languages — I’m fluent in four Indian languages, plus English, and can speak conversational French and Japanese. I grew up in India until I was 17, so English is not my first language.If you were to choose another job, not in journalism, what would it be?Somebody asked this question on Twitter, and I said I would still be a journalist. I can’t imagine not being one, because I have so many questions about how things work. I can’t imagine being able to ask those questions, and holding governments and institutions accountable, in any other role.What keeps you coming back to the job?I’ve never stopped learning. I’ve learned so much this year. Covering Covid, I’ve had to learn viral evolution and deep immunology and epidemiology. It’s just endlessly interesting.The Times has reported on the challenges faced by working moms during the pandemic. How have you managed child care when you’re reporting as much as you are?I have an extremely supportive husband. He is a squash pro, so he’s not working at the moment. He has taken over the caregiver roles quite a bit in our house. There are some things, of course, for which the kids still want me, but he does a lot. He takes care of all of the food, for example, which is a huge help.

#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }At HomeFall in Love: With TenorsConsider: Miniature GroceriesSpend 24 Hours: With Andra DayGet: A Wildlife CameraAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTimes InsiderHow Our At Home Writer Is Coping at HomeWe asked Melissa Kirsch to talk about ways she keeps her spirits up and her day meaningful. For her, it starts with a movie night.Keeping a log book of some of the small details of a day can serve as a record of this time.Credit…Getty ImagesMarch 4, 2021, 3:44 a.m. ETTimes Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.As we remain in quarantine, unsure if the slow jog to normalcy is a few more miles or a million, Melissa Kirsch, a culture and lifestyle editor, is part of a team at The New York Times that spends a lot of time thinking about how to embrace a full and fulfilling life in isolation. We asked Ms. Kirsch, who writes the At Home newsletter, to share what she has learned in the last year and talk about some of her own strategies for living well during an uncertain time. The following are her edited comments.Give myself something to look forward to. On Monday nights, I meet up with two friends on FaceTime to watch a crime documentary. We don’t talk during the movie, but having them in the room, even on a screen, makes the experience more exciting. If my energy starts to flag in the middle of a Monday afternoon, I’ll remember it’s movie night and feel both relief and anticipation. It’s not an actual movie in a theater, but it still feels special.Think about how I want to look back on this time. I find myself consciously trying to do things that will make me feel better about this experience in the future. That may mean reading more or cooking more or trying to be creative about the ways that I connect with other people — like writing letters or meeting people for walks in the cold. I don’t want this year to turn into a blur of Zoom chats and Netflix.Write down tiny details. I keep a log book, which is an idea that I got from the artist Austin Kleon. Every day, or as often as I can, I try to write down the most mundane details of the day. Today, I might write something about the fact that I reheated farro for lunch or that I spoke to somebody at The Times about a computer problem. Those tiny details that make up a day are the things we’ll forget when we look back on this time. I hope that when I read them over a decade from now, the complexion of the days will come to life: what it was really like, separate from the larger narrative of “a year in quarantine.”Act like I’m a person with a purpose. I try to give some structure to the day, even if it’s just by making my bed and taking a shower and leaving the house first thing in the morning for even a short walk before work. Doing those things really helps me feel normal. Another thing is bedtime. Going to bed at a reasonable time has helped keep some kind of armature to the days.Differentiate my days. I really want to get better at clearly demarcating the weekend from the week. We normally think of the weekend as a time to slow down. Each day is so similar to the one before, so I’m trying to see the weekend as a time to kind of speed up. So I might have a socially distanced outdoor hang with one friend in the middle of the day and meet up with another friend in the evening, and squeeze in cooking and cleaning and errands. I don’t have a commute or a social schedule, so I tend not to need more down time to recover from the week; I need up time.Make exercise part of my “social” life. When my daily life is busy and chaotic, I often treat exercise as a solo activity, a short period of time for contemplation before re-engaging with the world. Since so much of my time is already spent disengaged from the world these days, I’ve started jogging without headphones, purposely trying to take advantage of the moments when I’m outside the house and around other people, even if I’m not deliberately interacting with them. I purposely jog down the street that has outdoor restaurant seating or a playground, routes I would have avoided before. This way, I’m not just exercising to keep my mind and body in shape, but also to inhabit my neighborhood, to feel how we’re all connected, living our lives in parallel.Seek out information. Whether it’s jogging somewhere more populated or intentionally taking a walk someplace with more shops and more things to look at, I try to make each outing an exercise in replenishing my experience of the world. Our thoughts and actions and creativity are inspired by the people and things around us. And when we have limited people and things around us, it makes life smaller. Even though we’re social distancing, we still need social interactions, information input that keeps our minds sharp and our personalities interesting.Create a tiny routine. These can be small pleasurable things. A routine doesn’t have to be an elaborate, punishing system that you impose on your day. Rather, you can take the tiny things that you do every day and just sort of keep doing them. It can be deciding that you’re going to just have coffee on your stoop every morning or to walk your dog at 1 p.m. I make my bed each morning and do the crossword puzzle during lunch. These are pretty rudimentary elements of a day, but they’re two poles between which to hang the hours of the morning. Anything you do regularly and with intention can give the day some shape and some meaning.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story