As I mentioned on Tuesday, many of us are struggling with time dilation, difficulty remembering what happened when, feeling like four days ago was a month ago. This has made me eager to start building timelines of recent events both to place ourselves in time and keep a clear sense of the progression of events that got us here. On this front, I’m particularly interested in locking down when public officials said what, when claims were made, promises were made, decisions were made. This will be a work over time. But I am going to be asking for your help pulling this information together.
For now, if you’ve seen good timelines that have already been compiled by reliable sources of information, send me links by email. And keep all your emails coming. I cannot tell you how important they are for us right now. I have economists and statisticians sending me (us) modeling information and charts showing the arcs and trends of the new data we’re receiving, clinicians sending me (us) reports from hospitals, sources in government and politics sending tips.
I have seen this pattern countless times over the twenty year history of this site. Every big story, every big crisis finds readers who suddenly have remarkably relevant knowledge, technical expertise or perspective. When Hurricane Katrina hit 15 years ago suddenly I was in regular communication with a dozen meteorologists and people in the federal weather tracking bureaucracy who were educating me and providing me with critical information and tips. The COVID-19 Crisis touches so many aspects of our society, so many parts of government, business, so many domains of the sciences that countless readers are now experts on or have access to information on topics we need to understand better.
And of course in so many cases it is simply your perspective on what you are experiencing and seeing. So keep the emails coming. You are a critical part of our editorial process and an essential part of the team that is helping us keep our community and hopefully an audience beyond our existing community informed in this perilous and frightening time.
