Virus America, six months in: Disarray, dismay, disconnect

For years, Erin Whitehead has been a committed fan of the crisis-fueled medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy.” She has watched its doctors handle all manner of upheaval inside their put-upon hospital — terrifying diseases, destructive weather, bombs, mass shootings, mental illness, uncertainty, grief.

Today, she turns to the emotionally draining show as a salve, something to take her mind off of … well, off of everything this jumbled year has delivered to her nation, to her society, to her front door.

“Sixteen seasons of ‘Grey’s Anatomy'. That’s what the past six months of 2020 have been,” says Whitehead, a podcaster and full-time mother in Pace, a town of 34,000 in Florida's panhandle. “We’ve all just been in triage. Nobody can sustain that level of stress.”

On Friday, March 13, 2020, a COVID curtain descended upon the United States, and a new season — a season of pandemic — was born. Now we are half a year into it — accustomed in some ways, resistant in others, grieving at what is gone, wondering with great trepidation what will be.

New conflicts and causes have risen. Anger and death sit in daily life’s front row. A sense of uncertainty reigns. Great chunks of the national emotional infrastructure are buckling. We are locked in a countrywide conversation about control — who has it and who should.

And as the most contentious of presidential elections approaches, the very notion of what it means to be an American — and to be the United States of America itself — is perhaps the biggest contention point of all.

“Six months in, we are in a different place,” says Alicia Hinds Ward, an entrepreneur in Washington, D.C. “We don’t want to stay in this place. It’s ugly, it’s dark and we know we have to change.”

Nearly 200,000...