On March 10, DigBoston Executive Editor Jason Pramas wrote a column urging Mass lawmakers to expand the state’s sick time law to include gig workers and others living check-to-check with no safety net. He also noted the immediate need for additional critical services that could cushion a disastrous blow to the economy—like the one that was just right around the corner due to the coronavirus pandemic, a phrase we’ve written countless times since.
By March 16, we announced that the Dig was halting our print edition effective immediately. At the time, we had no idea how long it would take us to return, or if we would be fortunate enough to come back at all. We especially didn’t realize it would be a perfect 100 days between Jason’s first piece on coronavirus and our print revival on June 18. Rather, our focus was on keeping the flame burning online, though it is exciting to be back on the street.
What a wild, sad, and revealing journey it’s been. Take a ride back through these past few months with us through these vignettes and excerpts from the several hundred features we produced on the topic to date, and see how things have unfolded from where we’re watching.
3.12
Racism and fear-mongering from the start
Karen Chen, executive director of the Chinese Progressive Association, noted at a press conference today, “While some of us have options and things that will protect us, we have to make sure the people around us are also protected and have the options that you have. … We know that with the rise of COVID-19, the entire Asian community has been hit the hardest. … We also know that individuals have experienced racism, discrimination, and to an extent violence.” -CHRIS FARAONE
3.13
Acknowledging essential retail workers
One guy stocking shelves at Market Basket in Brockton told me that he was pretty thrilled to not only be working, but to be putting in overtime hours. Several family members, he said, are out of the job indefinitely due to coronavirus-related shutdowns, and he will be the breadwinner in his home for the foreseeable future. -CHRIS FARAONE
3.14
The scene at Logan
We’re going to have to get used to parking lots littered with surgical gloves. For my first few minutes of driving through central parking at Logan airport on Friday night at around eight o’clock, I couldn’t figure out why there was more discarded latex on the pavement than in alleyways around the Combat Zone back in the day. But after idling in my car for a few minutes, I saw a woman with a roller in tow walk up to her hybrid, peel a pair of blue gloves off her hands, ditch them on the cement, thoroughly sanitize, then open the door of her car using her sweatshirt. -CHRIS FARAONE
3.15
The dawn of #dropofflife
For about a year, Clay Fernald has driven Uber Eats to earn a couple extra bucks several nights a week. “It’s dangerous work [even without coronavirus],” he said. “It’s not super busy, and the restaurants are happy that people are ordering food from them. The social distancing is real. Uber is giving people the option of having the food left outside of somebody’s apartment building, and they can come down and pick it up.” -CHRIS FARAONE
3.16
Street outreach in action
An outreach van program run by Victory Programs is on the road making sure those on the streets not only have access to hand sanitizer, but that they are still being given harm-reduction supplies, including condoms and syringes for safe sex and drug use. “Really, the idea is going to be to try to find neighborhoods where there’s the greatest need,” said Rich Baker, the mobile prevention team director, “but kind of relooking at where we see that need and being as responsive as possible to be able to get out into the community.” -JORDAN FRIAS
3.19
ICE still at it
Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that daily enforcement operations for civil and criminal arrests will continue, but they will prioritize individuals who “threaten our national security and public safety.” The agency is also suspending social visitation in all detention facilities to mitigate spread of COVID-19. American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts Legal Director Matthew Segal said ICE has taken “steps in the right direction” by curbing enforcement and using alternative means to detention. “These directives are an important move towards allowing families and communities to seek help and medical care without the threat of deportation and family separation,” he told DigBoston. “More must still be done to both prioritize public health, including reducing the number of people currently detained and ensuring that immigration detainees have adequate and free access to health care and hygiene products.” -SARAH BETANCOURT
3.22
Students are scrambling
Students are struggling to find temporary housing, and many are now technically homeless. As of March 17, all Boston-area universities and colleges have instituted remote learning and closed student housing facilities, giving students anywhere from five to seven days to find alternative arrangements. Many school administrations set up public online portals to review petitions made by students with an extreme need to stay on campus, but students have complained that the decision process is not transparent. To make things worse, universities have largely failed to create alternate living spaces or sought mechanisms for dispersing funds to students on scholarship to offset food and living expenses. -ARIELA SHAPIRO
3.22
Homeless during COVID-19
From what they have seen and heard, a lot of homeless people in Boston don’t yet know what’s really happening with the virus, and in many cases don’t want to find out. For that reason, AHOPE staff is trying to educate and inform. “They tell us, they put up signs, but many don’t read them or ignore them and don’t want to listen, either,” Josué said. “None of these people are understanding what we have in front of us. They are acting as if nothing is happening. For now, I can only think of myself. If they take us to places where we can be safely separated from each other, okay. But that will not happen … It is like when they put us in cells to kill ourselves.” -IÑAKI ESTÍVALIZ
3.24
Barbers get cut too
A whole week before Governor Charlie Baker’s March 23 Order for non-essential businesses to cease in-person operations, the state’s Board of Registration of Cosmetology and Barbering issued a March 16 memo, addressed to to all licensees, nudging, “salons/shops and schools [to] follow any guidance from their local, state, and federal public health agencies on closures and/or limiting customers.”
Meanwhile, the Revere Board of Health ordered the immediate closure of all non-medically licensed personal care facilities on March 19. While Springfield edged a similar plea, “asking that certain venues take the precautionary measures needed during these public health emergency times by voluntarily discontinuing services.” -NATE HOMAN
3.25
Comic book industry fights back
In the biggest decision to affect the market, Diamond Distributing, which handles distribution for the largest comic book companies in the world—including Marvel, DC, Image, Valiant and Boom—has put a hold on reordering any comic books beyond April. With many shops closing due to local ‘shelter in place’ orders across the country, Diamond founder Steve Geppi said the decision to cease new products would remain until “a clearer path emerges.” In the short term, the move could help smaller retailers manage their cash flow as they prepare for a downturn in business. -DANA FORSYTHE
3.28
Drive-by protests commence
On Thursday afternoon in North Dartmouth, we and dozens of other drivers packed the parking lot of a local pharmacy. We were gathered in solidarity with the 52 people detained by ICE at the nearby Bristol County Corrections Center, and set off in a convoy and lined the street outside the jail, shouting, honking, and driving up and down the road, our cars covered in signs reading “Governor Baker: No Death Camps” and “Release Them All.” -ÁINE SWEETNAM + CAROLINE SPRAGUE
4.1
Educators, students struggle online
Teachers in Somerville, like almost everywhere else, have scrambled to adjust lessons for a virtual world, while the district has grappled with the difficulty of distributing laptops to students who need them. According to Somerville Teachers Association (STA) president Rami Bridge, “There’s such a wide range of experiences of our students and families, that figuring out how to create an education system that works for everybody in this moment is very complicated. … Trying to figure out what the world looks like, let alone what the educational model is going to look like, is really what we’re struggling with.” -SHIRA LAUCHAROEN
4.1
Retail employees speak out
Grocery store workers, convenience and liquor store clerks, Dunkin’ Donuts employees, and gas station attendants are all part of the essential workforce making the Commonwealth go ’round these days. As most office workers settle into home routines, low-wage workers of all stripes continue stepping out into a world transformed by pestilence, with some transfixed by the fear of it. -CAITLIN RUSSELL
4.3
Prisoner advocates sue
More than 75 medical professionals and public health experts from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School wrote a letter on March 31 to Gov. Baker, urging him to immediately release a number of prisoners because of the potential deadly spread of COVID-19. -JEAN TROUNSTINE
4.5
Drug testing continues
According to one probationer, their routine—which they had to go through twice last week—involves waiting in a lobby close to other people, riding in an elevator with an Averhealth employee, pulling their pants down and shirt up, peeing in a cup, and handing over the goods. If you fail to show up or provide compromised urine, you risk violating the terms of your punishment, and can face further penalties including incarceration. -CHRIS FARAONE
4.6
Breweries tweak distribution
Tap rooms have been shut down, while businesses have had to adapt to a lack of foot traffic and extended stays. Many have embraced curbside pick-up and delivery, but that’s only produced a fraction of what many local operations need to continue. In an interview, Night Shift co-founder Michael Oxton said the uncertainty of everything has been the worst part of the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re planning everything on a day-to-day basis,” Oxton said. -DANA FORSYTHE
4.7
Transforming dorms into shelters
According to one count last week, there were 1,441 people in Boston’s emergency shelters, with another 63 men and 17 women staying out on the street. The following morning, there were 1,160 homeless families in the shelters, the majority in scattered site apartments or congregate shelters, city data showed. “When this emergency emerged about a month and a half ago, we knew we were going to kick into gear,” Department of Neighborhood Development spokesman Alex Sturke said. “The whole point of the project is about encouraging the effort to flatten the curve, and Suffolk dorms are perfect for social distancing.” -NATE HOMAN
4.10
Grocery workers face fears, worse
Whole Foods has adopted some safety measures, including distributing gloves and masks at the beginning of each shift and offering “unlimited call-outs” to employees unable to work during the pandemic. On April 7, Gov. Baker issued new guidance for grocery stores that limits the amount of people allowed inside to 40% of the building’s legal occupancy. On their end, the Whole Foods chain has agreed to pay workers an additional two dollars an hour as compensation for putting their health on the line. According to many, that’s not nearly enough. -SHIRA LAUCHAROEN
4.10
Cambridge unsafely warehouses humans
MIT is housing first responders in a couple of dorms and Harvard is housing other first responders in a hotel, but neither vast wealthy college is offering any of its thousands of empty dorm rooms to house homeless folks during the coronavirus crisis. Instead, the elite institutions of higher learning have donated $250,000 each to Cambridge city government to warehouse local homeless people in the War Memorial Recreation Center and Fieldhouse—a public facility. Smaller sibling institution Lesley University has done nothing to ameliorate the homeless problem during the pandemic as yet. Nor have independent and chain hotels. -JASON PRAMAS
4.13
Dispensaries sue state
With all other states with legal cannabis allowing adult-use sales, one group of shop owners is suing the state for its decision, while a unified front of various activists, which came out two weeks ago asking for reopenings, is now also calling on Attorney General Maura Healey to issue a formal opinion “regarding Baker’s authority to restrict cannabis sales to residents.” -DIG STAFF
4.16
Accessible rapid response rolls out
On Wednesday, Walsh announced that the city would begin sharing racial and ethnic data about those who died from the virus. “It’s important for us to get these numbers so we can make sure that we’re getting messaging out to the different communities,” the mayor told reporters outside City Hall. That day, 4,528 people were positive for coronavirus in the city, with 40% of those cases being black and African American residents. -JORDAN FRIAS
4.18
Harvard workers stand up
Compared to many other janitors and custodians, those of us working at Harvard are lucky, even if we don’t feel like we’ve been given adequate COVID-19 protections. We make more than the average custodial salary of $26,000. But if any of us fall sick, like my coworker and our union rep Doris Reina-Landaverde did recently, we still have to use personal sick days. If we don’t have enough, that means 14 days without pay. It seems unfair since our jobs have been deemed essential. -MAREN R. CEJA
4.19
Seafood industry sinks
The Massachusetts Lobstermen’s Association is asking federal and state officials to change the rules so fishermen can sell their catch directly to the public, free of middlemen. “This time of the year, we might make 10 grand for the month,” Hull lobsterman Tim Walsh said. “This is like snow plowing. You don’t rely on it, but it’s great. We might get 200 or 300-pound hauls in 3 days a week. Now it’s like, Fuck, is this worth an eight-hour [day] for $400?” -NATE HOMAN
4.21
An invisible parole crisis
On April 17, Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of prisoners to significantly reduce the state’s prison population. The litigation recognizes that the way to stem “the harm caused by COVID-19 in prisons and their surrounding communities” is to force those responsible for inaction to take action, beginning with Gov. Baker. -JEAN TROUNSTINE
4.25
Craft distillers forgotten
The Massachusetts Distillers Alliance, which represents 14 distillers across the Bay State, is circulating a petition asking state officials to consider three measures that could give the industry “a fighting chance”: excise tax relief for the alcohol used to make hand sanitizer; the ability to sell and ship products directly to consumers within the state; and the ability for bars and restaurants to sell cocktails with takeout food orders. -ERIC TWARDZIK
4.26
Immigrant nightmares persist
Many who work in cleaning or the service industry have lost their jobs, found themselves without income, and are facing difficulties in paying their rents. Others continue to work on the frontlines as essential workers, often lacking sufficient protections. In both cases, these individuals are at heightened risk, according to Ben Echevarria, executive director of The Welcome Project, a social services organization for immigrants in Somerville. “There are so many people now who are unemployed,” Echevarria noted. “Employees, especially undocumented, are really afraid they’re being exploited in a lot of ways.” -SHIRA LAUCHAROEN
4.26
Restaurants begin to close for real
Many restaurants and bars remain open for takeout or delivery, while a number of others that had been temporarily closed are starting to reopen for takeout/delivery as well. It seems that maybe, just maybe, if dining spots can make it until the restrictions are lifted (May 4 for now, but that could change), they stand at least a fighting chance, though there are so many unanswered questions remaining. -MARC HURWITZ
4.29
Slumlords still evicting
Gov. Baker signed legislation creating a moratorium on most evictions last week, after a month of pressure from housing advocates. The legislation halts notices to quit, evictions, and foreclosures for non-payment of rent—all or any of which may be relevant for tenants who lost employment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many public officials, including Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, asked landlords to stop evictions during the pandemic. Several large property owners agreed, but other landlords still began eviction proceedings—even though the state’s courts shut down in the middle of March. -DAN ATKINSON
5.10
Summer cancelled
“Mayor Martin J. Walsh today in accordance with public health guidance around the COVID-19 pandemic announced that parades and festivals will not take place in the City of Boston this summer, up to and including Labor Day on September 7, 2020.” -DIG STAFF
5.12
Chelsea hit hard
At the time of this writing, Chelsea has the highest rate of infection in Massachusetts; whereas the average rate per 100,000 people statewide is 865.03, in Chelsea, it’s a staggering 5,217.1, with 1,965 reported infections to date. -KEIKO HIROMI
5.18
Here comes Phase 1
Baker announced his plans to reopen the economy after his advisory board on the subject “heard testimony from more than 75 business associations, labor unions, non-profits, and community coalitions that collectively represent more than 112,000 businesses and more than 2,000,000 employees” and “engaged stakeholders and analyzed information in over 45 hours of Zoom meetings over the past 20 days.” As for who they actually listened to, well, that’s another story altogether. -DIG STAFF
5.19
Dispensaries can reopen
At noon on Monday, May 18, shortly after Gov. Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito publicly announced the details of a four-phase pandemic reopening plan, Massachusetts issued a final cease and desist and summary suspension order relative to “Marijuana Establishments,” “Medical Marijuana Treatment Centers,” and “Colocated Marijuana Operations.” -DIG STAFF
5.19
Safety group slams Baker
Over the last eight weeks, thousands of essential workers in Massachusetts have become ill and even died as a result of their exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19 on the job. With the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency charged with protecting workers, missing in action, Massachusetts workers have been left largely to fend for themselves. -MASSCOSH
5.20
The war over reopening
Last weekend, Rep. Mike Connolly—one of a handful of democratic socialist politicians in Massachusetts—got a death threat on Facebook. Law enforcement is investigating. We do not want to go to that place. Such violence will merely beget more violence in response—which is what is generally intended by people that commit it. Racists want to start a “race war.” The ultra right—with their well-documented obsession with firearms— wants to back the left into a shooting war they assume they’ll win. -JASON PRAMAS
5.21
Live music returns (kind of)
Last weekend, something happened that hasn’t happened in two months: A ticketed live music event took place in New England. And it used a model likely to be seen at other live music venues this coming summer, one that’s intimate, outdoors, pricey, and distant. The watershed show went down at the Tupelo Music Hall in Derry, New Hampshire, and was the first in a series of drive-in concerts in the parking lot. -NOAH SCHAFFER
6.3
Restaurants are closing
Nearly three months into the COVID-19 pandemic, we are really starting to see announcements of restaurant closures. Interestingly, most of them seem to be well-known spots, household names that tend to be mentioned often in the media and at times in “best-of” lists, while other big-name dining spots are quietly being mentioned among industry folks as being gone for good as well. Meanwhile, little ma-and-pa spots, neighborhood joints, and pizzerias and sub shops continue to putter along, with very few closing announcements taking place among these categories. -MARC HURWITZ
6.5
Schools plan reopenings
Some schools are directly asking their students with help forming plans to reopen. Emerson has included five students as part of its “COVID-19 Response and Recovery Working Group,” and it appears they have four options to choose from in representing their peers: full residency; an early start with an end before Thanksgiving; online learning; and a mix of residential and online learning. -MAX GERSTEN
6.9
Food supply down, tensions up
“When the crisis first hit, for the first few weeks the grocery stores were running out of items and the amount of food that was available from grocery stores dipped. It’s a little less predictable than it used to be.” -ZACK HUFFMAN
6.12
Restaurants reopen with restrictions
A lot of attention is suddenly on restaurants now catering to outdoor clientele. I tapped into a few breweries that are able to sling pints and serve food in their patio spaces. Many establishments not serving food, including breweries and bars, will have to wait until Phase 4 to reopen, Gov. Baker announced Monday. Several establishments that offer suds and have established kitchens, though, reopened this week. -JORDAN FRIAS
This article was produced in collaboration with the Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism as part of its Pandemic Democracy Project.
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