Let the Pandemic Be a Wake-Up Call — and Take Control of Your Health
Covid-19 looks to be deadliest for Black men, but the habits we adopt today can last a lifetime
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
“It’s bad over there, huh?” my father asked on the phone. He was outside Washington, D.C.; I was in Berkeley, California. The Bay Area had just announced its shelter-in-place orders hours earlier, and I was rushing around for provisions to make it through the lockdown when he called.
Even though it was March 16 — earlier than anywhere else in the country taking such precautions — the novel coronavirus had been on my radar for a few months. As a reporter covering technology, health, and science for Level’s sibling publications, I’d been keeping up on the outbreak and lockdowns in China and the spread of the virus to the West Coast. I’d even been working from home for a little over a week, as were many of my coworkers, in order to protect myself.
But much of the country hadn’t yet realized how Covid-19 might affect folks in the U.S., including my dad. He was worried about whether I was actually going to stay inside. And I was even more worried about whether he was going to stay inside.
