Subject: The last NYT "Virus Briefing" email until further
Marking a turning point in the Covid pandemic, or at least in the news coverage of it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/0...

[ I had signed up for the email list two+ years ago, but if you're not a NYT subscriber, try clicking on "Reader View" or equivalent in your browser to get past it. I don't subscribe, and that works for me. ]

"On Jan. 6, 2020, The New York Times first reported on a mysterious 'pneumonia-like illness' that sickened 59 people in Wuhan, China. Symptoms included high fever, trouble breathing and lung lesions, but Chinese health officials said there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Two days later, Chinese scientists identified the source of the new disease: a previously unidentified coronavirus. Within weeks, the pathogen was sickening scores of people in Wuhan, and China took the drastic step of locking down the city, effectively sealing off its 11 million inhabitants from the world.

Then, time seemed to accelerate.

Seismic events began to take place, one after the next: Professional sports leagues around the world suspended seasons. Stocks plunged. Donald Trump cut off travel from Europe. The World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic.

Soon, entire countries began shutting down. Popular tourist sites and metropolises across the world became ghost towns. By early April, authorities had told four billion people ' roughly half of humanity ' to stay home.

'If you look at the very beginning, we found ourselves in ' at least in our memory ' the unprecedented situation of the evolution of what would turn out to be one of the most devastating pandemics in more than a century,' Dr. Anthony Fauci, who helped lead the U.S. government's response to the pandemic, told me this week. 'That, at first, was complicated by the opaqueness of the Chinese authorities and letting the rest of the world know what was actually going on.'

In those initial days, there was so much we didn't know ' and so much speculation and misinformation ' that The New York Times started a newsletter on March 2, 2020, to serve as an informed guide to the global outbreak.

...

Now, after three years, we're pausing this newsletter. The acute phase of the pandemic has faded in much of the world, and many of us have tried to pick up the pieces and move on. We promise to return to your inbox if the pandemic takes a sharp turn. But, for now, this is goodbye.