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W H A T

W E ’ R E

F R O M
LEARNING T H E V I R U S

T H A T

C H A N G E D

E V E R Y T H I N G

NUMBERS REVEAL ESSENTIAL
truths, but they don’t provide much
comfort. With 3.9 million confirmed
cases and 270,000 deaths* in 187
countries on every continent but Ant-
arctica, the coronavirus pandemic has
already altered daily life beyond rec-
ognition. It will shape our lives for
years to come, mostly in ways that
are impossible to predict, let alone
understand. ¶ Yet faced with the big-
gest public-health crisis of the cen- Background: A fluorescent pho-
tomicrograph of a monkey cell
infected with a candidate vaccine
for COVID-19. Red staining shows
the cell’s structural scaffolding,
blue marks its DNA, and green
reveals the “spike” protein it pro-
duces when infected with SARS-
CoV-2, as the novel coronavirus is
tury, we need all the comfort and known. Foreground: We asked
participants to submit photo-
understanding we can get. So Esquire graphs of the world right now
turned to the best source we know of: through their eyes—plus a selfie.
the stories of others. We asked twenty
people—from an eight-year-old in
Indiana to the governor of Washing-
ton—to share their experiences in
the first few months of the outbreak.
Each of their stories is a reassurance
that none of us are facing this alone.
Here are their first-person accounts
of humanity’s stand against the virus.

*STATISTICS, HERE AND THROUGHOUT, ARE AS OF PRESS TIME.