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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

December 26. COVID optimism: two new RNA vaccines are rolling out which gives people the sense that maybe the pandemic could come under control in the next six months or so. The first dose of the Pfizer-Bio-NTech vaccine in the U.S. — delivered from Belgium, manufactured via a Turkish-German couples' technology (the Bio-NTech) developed then together with Pfizer — was given to a Jamaica born nurse and head of critical care , Sandra Lindsay, at Northwell Long Island Jewish Medical Center, who in a lovely familiar light Jamaican accent gave a pep speech for everyone else. Dr. Anthony Fauci received one of the first Moderna vaccines also publically on TV a few days later. I take pleasure in the various nationalities and ethnicities involved as a feature of international scientific co-operations that have not succumbed to politician's nationalisms. V.M. from Brazil sends along a lovely short article she wrote for the journal Psicopatologia Fenomenologica Contemporanea's discussion section "Experts' Opinion-- The World and COVID-19, in which she (i) reflects on the pandemic as exposing our existential sense of vulnerability (in distinction from economic precariousness), (ii) warns about the mental disorder pandemic which follows the physical one, and whose "proportions we still do not know precisely, but we've been following in our patients", and (iii) reflects upon the split experience of lived space (split between immersive/intense interactions on zoom, and then the self-reflective shock of coming back to one's physical self at home). She was one of the participants in the Friday Morning Seminar and she notes, "I was revived by the resumption of contact and learning, and my work capacity became greater and I accelerated my projects, even though I remained in quarantine working alone online in Fortaleza." Moreover, to her surprise, she felt positive results through seeing patients online, not only with those she had already seen in her office but also with new patients. She invokes Merleau-Ponty's "Cézanne's paintings are more real than photography because reality is imprecise, it has multiple contours, it is always in movement and there is no separation between what is real and what is imaginary." In a way, she muses, also in the "virtual relationship there is also no separation between reality and the imaginary realm, but one constitutes the other." Meanwhile S.'s brother in a nursing home in Illinois contracted COVID-19 [positive tests]-- it seems (they won't say how many) many in the facility and among the nursing staff have or have had bouts with it). In J.'s case he did not develop pneumonia (lungs are clear), but has suddenly fallen a few times (legs just collapsing), some coughing, sudden aggressiveness pushing help and food and meds away, unable to recognize what a phone is, or to hear S.'s voice; but yesterday suddenly seemed to have "woken up" and was able to speak on the phone. One of course does not know what is COVID, what is dementia, what is insulin disregulation, and what are the effects of the medications that are being adjusted for him. A reminder that COVID in nursing homes is not one thing: it's complicated. We have been planning how to get together with R. and A., almost committed to having lunch at the Harvest where they say the tables are six feet apart, but then after reading another piece on the dangers of such in-door dining, they urged us to think better of it. Instead we will drive down to Providence and visit them at A.'s apartment, which seems less risky. A very risk-averse friend, K, called while we were there, and hearing we were inside an apartment, hung up. (Maybe just polite, 'not important, talk later', not wanting to interrupt; but also felt like: well! I won't see you for two weeks! We do only see them outside on the sidewalk six feet apart, but just as evidence of the efforts to calibrate risk and safety). In Israel, despite all the other dysfunctions (coalition government collapsed again), there seem to supplies of vaccine for everyone, health-care workers and nursing homes first, and already next week a 60-year old colleague has an appointment to get his (Pfizer he thinks). Here talk of short supplies, age for elders raised to 75.