Eighty minutes that changed our world

How COVID-19 went from abstract to very real in a hurry

There is a space between about 8:10 and 9:30 p.m. Wednesday that you can measure in time. It was 80 minutes, give or take, depending on how closely you follow the news. But there is another, in many ways, more tangible, gulf between those moments. At 8:10 everything was abstract. By 9:30 it was incredibly real.

It happened in a tumble. Everything slow became fast. The news bubbled over in a white water gush.

At 8:10 EST, in Oklahoma City, a team doctor ran onto a basketball court seconds before an NBA game was scheduled to begin. You can see him in one clip posted online, in a blue suit and brown loafers. He appears from off-screen in a halfpanicked scramble, shuffling in off the baseline and skidding toward centre court.

For several minutes, he went back and forth, from bench to bench, to the coaches and the referees. In the footage, you can see the confusion settle in as he darts to and fro. The pregame warm-ups stretch on too long. The coaches huddle. They split. The referees gather. Then suddenly, team officials begin to herd their players off the court.

By 8:30, the game was officially called.

Across the country, in Washington, D.C., as the confused fans streamed out of the Oklahoma arena, the president of the United States, a former reality television star, sat down to deliver a national address.

It began at 9:01 p.m. EST. It followed, on Fox, an episode of the Masked Singer, a reality show that featured, on this night, Sarah Palin, a former Republican candidate for vice-president. The last image on screen before cutting to the White House was of Palin, in a pink and purple bear costume, dancing and rapping about butts — a carnival transition for a carnival politics gone utterly mad.

On screen, in the Oval Office, the president looked the closest thing he comes to grave. He squinted. His right eye nearly closed. He clutched his hands. He crossed his fingers. He twiddled his thumbs as he spoke. He has never been a natural reader, the president. Nor does he do solemn well. He thrives in improv and dark jokes. He was not a man born to calm pandemic fears.

Still, even by those low standards, what he delivered Wednesday fell well short of the bar. It was a bizarre and tangled speech. He stumbled over words he was obviously reading. He sucked in breath between teeth as he stuttered. He boasted about an effort that he and he alone seemed to believe has been world class.

The president announced a series of drastic new measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 Wednesday, including a travel ban for much of continental Europe. But despite reading from a teleprompter, he managed to get several elements of his own plan wrong. It was a moment of national crisis, the economy in tatters, a pandemic spiralling out of control, and the emperor not only had no clothes, he needed glasses, too.

As the fact checkers picked apart his speech online — he got the scope of the ban wrong; he was wrong about insurance coverage for treatment; he was wrong on banning goods — the news tumbled forward in impossible leaps.

At 9:14, Tom Hanks, a man so innocent and decent he signs his tweets “Hanx,” announced online that he had tested positive for the virus. Soon news emerged that Rudy Gobert, a basketball player for the Utah Jazz, was positive, too. His teammates were rushed off the court in Oklahoma City. They were given gloves and masks. They were quarantined in their locker room. They stayed in the arena for most of the night.

The game was called off. At 9:31, the NBA put the entire season on hold.

In less than an hour and a half, a news story, something that existed somewhere in everyone’s mind, had become the only thing, anywhere. And by Thursday morning, the reality that COVID-19 would mean dramatic changes to life in North America, not sometime in the future, but now, had begun to sink in.

The NHL, following the NBA’s lead, suspended all games indefinitely. In Ontario, the government announced that all public schools would close for two weeks after the March break. Quebec and Alberta barred large public gatherings. In Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his wife showing signs of being ill, was placed in self-quarantine. In B.C., health officials advised against all non-essential travel outside of Canada, including to the United States. What was once distant was now here.

COVID-19 has existed in the public imagination for months now, but always as something that was happening over there. It was a problem in China. Then it was a disaster in Iran. Even when it shut down Italy, it didn’t feel fully real. But on Wednesday, in a mad 80 minutes of news, all of that changed.

After his speech ended, and the camera panned out, the president sat at his desk blinking. For whatever reason, C-Span continued to broadcast, even after a voice called from off screen “We’re clear.”

At that point, the president leaned back and unbuttoned his coat. “Okaaaay,” he said, drawing out the vowel sound. But it wasn’t. And it isn’t. And no one can be sure when it will be again.

The president pushed back from the desk. He opened his coat. An aid took the microphone off his lapel. And finally, the camera cut away.