Items
Contributor is exactly
Aaron Peterka
-
2020-08-12
Together But Apart
This west Wichita sign reflects the coronavirus paradox that has been thrust upon communities across the world since the pandemic's outbreak, as people supposedly face this crisis together, but must maintain physical separation to do so. Also highlighted is the "6 feet rule" that has become an omnipresent feature in most or all public spaces, as social distancing became one of the most effective ways to limit the virus's community transmission. -
2020-07-24
Massachusetts COVID-19 Order No. 45 - Mandatory Quarantine Order for Outside Travelers
Governor Charles Baker issued this executive order making 14-day quarantines for out-of-state travelers mandatory on July 24, 2020, in a departure from the advisory "order" declared in March asking travelers to either quarantine or avoid the commonwealth all together. This order exempts seven Northeastern states whose COVID levels had been deemed "low-risk," but required all out-of-state travelers from the remaining 43 states, and returning residents, to self-isolate or obtain a negative test result 72 hours prior to arrival. Failure to meet these guidelines carried with it a penalty of a $500/day fine; a feature that was absent from the earlier travel advisory guidelines. With Massachusetts having seen improvement from the springtime surge that left tens of thousands of residents infected and over 8,000 dead, the Commonwealth sought to stay ahead of the virus curve and squelch an expected resurgence, as tens of thousands of returning students from across the country prepared to descend upon greater Boston colleges and universities in the fall. -
2020-06-19
Massachusetts COVID-19 Executive Order No. 40: Advancing Phase II Reopening
This executive order from mid-June of 2020 allows for restaurants and "close contact personal services" to reopen their "brick-and-mortar premises" and resume indoor table service. -
2020-07-02
Massachusetts COVID-19 Executive Order No. 44 - Revised Public Gathering Mandate
On July 2, 2020, Governor Charles Baker revised COVID-19 Order No. 38 to exclude businesses designated as "a Phase I, Phase II, or Phase III enterprise" that is allowed to open its environs to workers and the public from gathering restrictions, provided that said businesses are following the state's COVID-19 safety rules. -
2020-07-10
MA Commissioner of Public Health: Grocery Store Rescission Order
On July 10, 2020, the Massachusetts public health commissioner rescinded the order requiring COVID-19 mitigation and exposure reduction strategies in grocery stores. -
2020-06-06
Massachusetts COVID-19 Executive Order No. 38
As Massachusetts began its slow, phased reopening following the end of its lockdown, Governor Charles Baker issued this order extending the prohibition of gatherings of 10 or more people "in any confined indoor or outdoor space." This mandate reflects the abundance of caution taken by the state, as opposed to states that hurried their reopening in an effort to re-start their economy. -
2020-08-05
Viral Spread: A Snapshot of Kansas Coronavirus Cases
This screenshot taken on August 5, 2020, captures the virus's spread in the state of Kansas as of that date, with Johnson and Wyandotte Counties ("JO" and "WY"/Kansas City, KS, metro-area), along with Sedgwick County ("SG"/Wichita), leading the state in total number of cases. The two graphs depict the virus's course throughout the spring and summer of 2020, revealing its early rise, decline, and accelerated summer surge. Together, these screenshots offer a snapshot of the effects of a patchwork response and quick reopening, and how quickly virus cases spread as a result. -
2020-08-04
A New and Uncertain School Year
The marquee along Maple Street, Wichita, Kansas, for Benton Elementary School urges parents to enroll their children now in what many thought would be a challenging school year. In late July, the Wichita school board delayed the start of the school year until after Labor Day in order to give faculty and staff more time to adjust their curriculum to more flexible models, clean facilities, and set up necessary shields, barriers, and social distancing measures. Despite the mandate requiring these measures, as well as masks and hand washing every hour, teachers and students still ventured into an uncertain school year, as Wichita-area schools forged ahead with in-person instruction and contact sports. -
2020-08-04
Kansas Primary, August 4, 2020
A scene taken on the day of the Kansas primaries for the US Senate and House of Representatives. With the state caught in COVID's grip, many voters availed themselves of mail-in-ballots, but some voters still preferred to show up to the polls in person, as they did here in southwest Wichita. Nevertheless, this image captures but a small segment of the various challenges that the United States faced in holding federal, state, and municipal elections in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. -
2020-08-04
Last Call: Wichita Bars and Nightclubs Close...Again
On July 21, 2020, the Sedgwick County Public Health Officer closed all bars and nightclubs until September 9, a date the Sedgwick County Commission quickly amended to August 21. These photographs show two items that sat side-by-side at the front entrance of the Blu Nightclub in west Wichita, Kansas. The first alerts patrons to the club's mitigation efforts and what is expected of them upon entering the establishment, while the second, which was taped to the front door, informs customers that they are closed until August 22. Although no COVID clusters originated in bars and nightclubs, Sedgwick County contact tracers discovered that infected people had stopped at such businesses and possibly spread the virus even more. Finally, note the owner's insertion of the word "Hopefully" on the left side of the sign. With federal aid expired and relief mired in a partisan deadlock in Washington, D.C., many businesses in Wichita, and across the country, feared the potentially fatal effects repeated closures would have upon their livelihoods. -
2020-08-04
A Roadside Appeal
This sign implores Wichita residents to save a life by wearing a protective mask, thereby underscoring face masks' growing importance, when it had been previously dismissed as a relatively ineffective non-pharmaceutical intervention early in the pandemic. Not only does this sign attempt to reinforce the city's mask mandate, its wording also hints at how COVID-19 had become a threat to all age demographics by the summer of 2020. At the time of this photograph, the average age of an infected patient in Wichita had dropped from the mid-60s in the spring to 37, thus Wesley Hospital's appeal for everyone to do their part to help stop a rapidly accelerating and demographically expanding contagion. -
2020-08-04
COVID Testing West Wichita
In an effort to expand testing in west Wichita, Kansas, West Wichita Family Physicians sealed off their minor care clinic from the rest of their facility in order to dedicate it to COVID-19 screening and testing. A patient would call the number listed at the bottom of the sign, then proceed to answer questions pertaining to their travel history, risk factors, symptoms, and possible exposure to the virus. Should the patient's condition warrant further investigation, an appointment was made, with the patient being guided by signs such as this to the proper testing site. At the time of this photograph's creation, Kansas's total number of cases stood at nearly 30,000, with over 4,500 in Sedgwick County alone. Typically, Kansans had to wait 9 to 14 days before receiving their results due to backlogs created by high turnouts and too few testing locations. -
2020-06-02
Hope Turns to Disappointment: Starkey Reopens...Then Closes Again
As spring gave way to summer in 2020, Starkey gradually opened its day programs for its persons-served in phases, so as to ensure their safety as much as possible. These emails dated June 2 to July 14, 2020, offer a look into a seemingly steady and successful reopening process, while illustrating the patchwork nature of Kansas's reopening, and how individual entities charted their own course while following the state's suggested guidelines. Perhaps most tellingly, the final email conveys the sudden pullback brought about by the virus's continued surge, when the day programs closed yet again due to rapidly rising COVID-19 cases in Sedgwick County, Kansas. Taken together, these items give substance to a quickly deteriorating situation that came to characterize the COVID-19 experience in Sedgwick County during the COVID summer of 2020. -
2020-06-15
Connections Newsletter: How a Special Needs Community Weathers the COVID-19 Storm
Given the unique challenges presented by COVID-19, special needs programs, such as Starkey, Inc. in Wichita, Kansas, needed to make equally unique adaptations so as to safeguard an already vulnerable community. This Connections newsletter from the summer of 2020 highlights some of those adaptations from early in the pandemic. These included local food donations to the various residences, the closure of day programs, homemade mask-making drives to make up for the mask shortage, and even visits from wildlife experts from a local zoo, who brought with them a sloth, a lynx, and a penguin for the residents to enjoy. Overall, this source provides a more in-depth look into how a community like Starkey dealt with the virus's early outbreak in ways that had to be uniquely suited to the needs of those they served. -
2020-07-27
Wichita School Enrollment Proceeds Under COVID's Long Shadow
Upon rejecting the governor's order to delay the start of Kansas schools until after Labor Day, 2020, the decision as to if and when to reopen fell upon the state's individual school districts. Although Wichita school district USD 259 ultimately decided to delay the start of the academic year until after the holiday, enrollment proceeded under a cloud of uncertainty and unanswered question for students, parents, and teachers alike. This photograph points to that reality by advising all affected parties as to where the latest information can be found regarding an extremely delicate and fluid situation that left students, families, and teachers across the country wondering how something so routine as the new school year could be navigated safely in the face of a potentially deadly virus. -
2020-07-27
Masked and Contactless Service
Following Wichita's municipal ordinance overriding the Sedgwick County Commission's decision to forego the governor's mask mandate, citizens were required to wear protective face coverings in all public spaces within the city limits. Electronic billboards and marquees, such as this one from west Wichita's Credit Union of America, announced that all customers must comply with this order should they wish to conduct business within their environs, while at the same time offering contactless methods for various bank transactions. These photographs underscore the urgency of both masks and social distancing, two of the most effective anti-COVID countermeasures, in combating a rapidly accelerating outbreak that city and Kansas state officials struggled to corral during the summer of 2020. -
2020-07-20
Camp Hansen COVID-19 Restrictions
This screenshot provides a more specific look into what facilities and services were closed or modified as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak at Camp Hansen, Okinawa. Note to the right where one comment from a member of the 12th Marines tells his fellow "devil dogs" not to worry about the barbershop closures, since his CO shaved his head without any need of such a service. -
2020-07-11
HPCON C Guidance at Camp Hansen, Okinawa
These orders, captured in this screenshot from Marine Corps Base Camp Hansen's Facebook page, stipulate what personnel can and cannot do as the III Marine Expeditionary Force battled a COVID-19 outbreak on this and other bases on Okinawa in early July 2020. A testament to COVID's sneaky transmission, not even secure military facilities could seal themselves off from the virus, prompting them to close down even tighter as their European counterparts did in the early months of the pandemic. Note: "HP Con C" stands for "Health Protection Condition Charlie," which means that there is substantial community transmission of a pathogen in the area. -
2020-07-15
Camp Hansen COVID Update From the Camp Commander
This screenshot of a letter distributed to all Marine Corps and Navy personnel and their families aboard Camp Hansen in Okinawa details the service's priorities in the weeks ahead, as Marine Corps bases across the island do battle against a potentially deadly pathogen. Those priorities include preserving the Force, protecting the Marine Corps-Okinawa relationship, and "generate combat power" to deal with the COVID threat that struck Camp Hansen in July of 2020. -
2020-07-15
Limited Reopenings on Okinawa
Following an outbreak on US Marine Corps facilities on Okinawa, the branch closed down most on-base community services in order to slow the virus's spread. On July 15, some installations cautiously re-opened a select few, although not all bases restored services immediately. Some services resumed with minimal staffing in place, while others only applied to unit training, while others offered a virtual alternative. However, this partial restoration was short-lived, when MCCS shut down the fitness centers the following day. -
2020-07-21
Outbreak on Okinawa
In July 2020, a COVID-19 outbreak struck the US Marine Corps bases at Camp Hansen and MCAS Futenma on the island of Okinawa. This screenshot shows one of the countermeasures the Marine Corps Community Services took to halt the spread, which not only applied to Hansen and Futenma, but all USMC facilities on Okinawa. Due to the ease of transmission in crowded gyms, all fitness centers and gyms shut down, thus depriving the fitness-minded Marines of a key component to maintaining their physical readiness. -
2020-07-27
Confusion on the Plains
These screenshots of the Kansas Health Secretary's Twitter account highlight the mixed messages that have come to characterize the efforts to combat the coronavirus in the summer of 2020. Just days before, the virus had been "gaining speed," and Kansas was "heading in the wrong direction," but by July 26th, the state's infection rate appeared to be "leveling off a bit." Although he presses Kansans to adhere strictly to all mitigation practices, these messages reflect the jarring effects of instantaneous communication and data analysis as medical professionals and ordinary citizens alike struggle to accurately comprehend the real-time scope and spread of COVID-19; a disease that had been completely unknown just a year before. -
2020-07-21
Different Restaurants. Different Policies
These photographs present two different policy approaches taken by two different west Wichita restaurants. The "patchwork" of policies that came to define the United States' COVID-19 response also manifested itself in individual businesses, with some area restaurants, like Ziggy's Pizza, proclaiming that they're open for both indoor and outdoor service, while several blocks away, Chick-Fil-A's sign declares that their dining room remained closed. Both taken on the same day, these pictures represent the myriad messages and signals given by governments and businesses that added to the confusion and uncertainty that characterized the COVID-19 pandemic in Wichita. -
2020-07-21
A Packed Gym Parking Lot
This photo shows a nearly full Northwest YMCA parking lot in west Wichita, Kansas. Despite rising case numbers, Sedgwick County still permitted bars, restaurants, night clubs, and gyms to continue operating, and at the time of this photograph's creation, local news networks were reporting that a public health order aimed at re-closing at least some of these establishments was imminent. Establishments such as gyms and night clubs proved to be fertile ground for viral transmission due to the difficulty in maintaining sufficient social distancing, thus the reason public health officials in Sedgwick County cited them as one of the key drivers of Wichita's virus surge in the summer of 2020. -
2020-07-21
Lobby's Open...If You Have a Mask
After the mayor's and City Council's mask mandate went into effect, Wichitans were required to wear masks in all public indoor spaces, like this west Wichita bank. These photos reflect how this particular business adapted to the new mandate, requiring its customers to don a protective mask or face covering upon entering the building, or use the drive thru service should they lack one. Virtually unseen prior to the pandemic, masks became an integral mitigation tool during the pandemic that caused both minor and major changes to the look and conduct of everyday life. -
2020-07-21
Local Businesses Still Need Support
The slogan "Stay Strong, Wichita" proved quite common during the city's lockdown in March and April, but became less so following Kansas's quick reopening. By July of 2020, Wichita, Sedgwick County, and the state itself grappled with rapidly rising COVID case numbers, prompting many public health officials to emphasize more emphatically their case to slow and roll back Kansas's reopening. Amidst rising illness, divided state and local government, economic pain and uncertainty, and trepidation at reopening Kansas schools in the coming weeks, this local west Wichita car wash exhorts citizens to support local businesses and to "Stay Strong, ICT." Note: "ICT" are the call letters for Wichita's Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport (and its predecessor, Mid-Continent) and is a common term of endearment used by Wichitans in reference to their city. -
2020-07-21
Healthcare "Warriors"
On top of billboards, signs, and store discounts, this photo of a mail-order catalog shows one more way how US businesses recognized public healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and integrated that recognition into their business models. The catalog marketed this particular item as a way of showing patriotic support for those dealing with the COVID crisis. Also, by declaring medical professionals to be "warriors," this advertisement fit into a fairly common view held by many, including those in federal, state, and local government, that the US response to COVID-19 was analogous to a military campaign. -
2020-07-16
A Nationwide Coin Shortage
With businesses having closed down, people avoiding handling hard currency out of fear of contracting COVID-19, and the US Mint experiencing significant difficulties in coin production in the spring of 2020, the US supply of circulating coins took a hit, prompting signs like this one at a west Wichita, Kansas, grocery store to become commonplace. Appearing in both English and Spanish, this image reflects the growing importance of cashless forms of payment and donations as ways of navigating this economic side effect of COVID-19. -
2020-07-16
A Country In Tatters
Taken after a series of thunderstorms swept through Wichita, Kansas, in mid-July, 2020, this image strikes a symbolic parallel to the feelings and emotions felt by countless Americans during the pandemic crisis of 2020. Ravaged by the perfect storm of a ravenous and lethal virus, racial unrest, a hobbled economy, and a contentious election cycle, the United States of 2020 appeared to be a country in tatters amidst a sea of confusion, uncertainty, and partisan strife. -
2020-07-16
Some Churches Open...And Others Stay Closed
Since the lock down, some churches in Kansas had filed lawsuits against the governor and her administration's orders to restrict large public gatherings and advocate social distancing. With those orders largely removed as a result of a compromise package agreed to by the governor and the GOP-led legislature, many churches reopened without restrictions of any kind. These photographs prove that the converse was also a reality, with other churches, like this one in west Wichita, opting to remain virtual, especially as the virus surged across the state in the summer of 2020. Without video conference and social media technology, such religious gatherings would have proved impossible. -
2020-07-15
An Outbreak at Heartspring
On July 7, 2020, Heartspring, a special needs school and residential campus for autistic children and teens in Wichita, Kansas, announced that six of its school employees tested positive for COVID-19, prompting the immediate closure of its pediatric services building and surrounding facilities until further notice. Although all staff underwent testing, Heartspring administrators feared that the outbreak may not have been detected in time and were preparing for more cases to manifest in the coming days and weeks, with local authorities recognizing the outbreak as a COVID cluster. These photographs show the shuttered pediatrics services building and the neighboring residences; a silent testament to the burgeoning case load that swept the city, the state, and threatened its hospitals in the summer of 2020. It also recognizes the efforts of Heartspring staff in taking care of this vulnerable community. -
2020-07-08
A Toothless Mandate: Sedgwick County's Mask Order, July 8 and 9, 2020
After the city of Wichita decreed compulsory mask-wearing, the Sedgwick County Local Health officer issued an emergency order overriding the County Commission's decision to not make masks in public mandatory. The first order states that no penalties will enforce the mandate's provisions, while the second, issued the very next day, adds religious institutions to the list of exempted parties; a hot button issue that saw Governor Laura Kelly's administration besieged by lawsuits and accusations of abuse of power during the statewide lockdown. Therefore, these texts are products of the political tensions that hobbled Kansas's response efforts in the face of a surging COVID-19 crisis, with state and local leaders, most if not all of whom identified as Republicans, opting for non-existent counter-measures that prevented "executive overreach," but allowed the virus to flourish. -
2020-07-10
See You Later Rather Than Sooner: Wichita Theaters Still Closed
Capturing the same Warren Theater documented in the items "May the Force Be With You, Wichita" and "The Show's Over...For Now," these two photos clearly reveal that, despite Kansas's hurried attempts to restore normal economic activity, the show was still over four months after Regal closed the Warren Theater in west Wichita, Kansas. The sign expresses that the Warren misses its patrons like "popcorn misses butter," while the second photo captures a still empty parking lot on a hot Friday afternoon in July. The duration of the theater's closure is made even more evident by the weeds bordering the parking stalls in the foreground, some of which stood several feet tall. -
2020-07-09
Wichita's Healthcare Heroes
This banner honors the work performed by the doctors, nurses, and staff of the west Wichita Wesley Medical Center Emergency Room at 13th and Tyler Road. Signs like these proved fairly common across the city, therefore adding to the wide variety of expressions of gratitude displayed across the world for those in the medical professions who have dealt with COVID-19's harsh reality. Nonetheless, at the time this photograph was taken, Sedgwick County announced that its hospital space and ICU availability was beginning to encounter greater stress. After a hasty re-opening and a lack of political will to enforce and maintain mitigation measures, COVID-19 cases surged across the state, with patients from the county and surrounding rural areas lacking direct access to medical facilities being brought to Wichita-area hospitals for treatment. -
2020-07-10
YMCA and Waterpark Reopen...And COVID-19 Kicks Into High Gear
YMCAs reopened with restrictions beginning on May 18, although in-person group classes did not reconvene. This photo shows a fair number of vehicles at this YMCA facility in west Wichita, Kansas, and while the city's late June order closed municipal pools and water parks, this did not apply to aquatic centers managed by private entities. Nevertheless, patrons appear to be spaced out on the water slide, with a lifeguard at the top managing the queue. These photos reveal how people in Wichita were attempting to confront the pandemic while retaining some semblance of normalcy in their daily lives, but on the same day these pictures were taken, the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment announced 1,000 new cases in the state, bringing its total to 18,611, with 2,074 of those in Sedgwick County. A week before, the state's total was 15,919. -
2020-07-07
Citizens Protest at Wichita Mayor's Residence
This news article from KSN, a Kansas news network, highlights the aggravation of political tensions that have only gotten worse with COVID-19's disruption of US society. In a move reminiscent of protestor tactics in St. Louis, Missouri, a group of Wichitans, disgusted with the mayor's successful push to implement city-wide mask use, staged a protest outside his residence, with its organizer even advocating, should participants choose, to exercise "Second Amendment rights" as a sign of protest. Although not a large demonstration, this article nevertheless adds to the emerging portrait of a country and its communities cleaved by politics and a pandemic. -
2020-07-07
Wichita City Council Ordinance No. 51-307: Facemasks Required In Wichita, Kansas
This Wichita ordinance, passed on July 3, 2020, overrode the Sedgwick County Commission's vote declining to implement Kansas Governor Laura Kelly's executive order making masks mandatory statewide; a vote that was held the previous day. Due to an accelerating positive test rate in both Sedgwick County and Wichita, the Wichita mayor convened a special session of the City Council to mandate in the city what has become one of the most effective preventative weapons against COVID-19. This order specifies the necessity for masks in public, when citizens must wear them, and penalties for non-compliance. Moreover, this order stands as an artifact of the divisive politicization that has come to dominate much of the United States's coronavirus response, especially in states like Kansas, where a Democrat executive, like Governor Kelly or Mayor Whipple, has repeatedly clashed with a Republican-dominated legislature or county commission. -
2020-07-06
The Discarded Mask: Two Perspectives
Found on the sidewalk along west Wichita, Kansas's 13th Street, this discarded mask reflects two dueling realities that have come to define the larger COVID-19 experience. First, such a sight is now rather commonplace across many communities, thereby revealing that masks have become such an important mitigation measure and common clothing accessory in both the US and the world that they are found in use and disuse as easily as a soda can or food wrapper. It is also emblematic of the contrary attitudes still held by many people, especially in more conservative regions of the United States, with a still significant portion of the population who, in the face of surging cases and fatalities, continue to challenge the need for masks and distancing by carrying on as if COVID-19 were a relic of the past. -
2020-07-06
Wash Hands Before Entering
These photographs taken of the east side of a local Wichita grocery store depict the continuing efforts businesses are taking to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Positioned just off the east parking lot, this recently-installed hand-washing station makes clear in both English and Spanish that it is not for any use other than sanitation. With medical professionals touting masks and thorough, 20-second hand-washing as some of the most effective means of prevention, images like this reflect how stores are attempting to ensure customer and employee safety as much as possible by making hygienic facilities as widely available as possible, even before a customer even enters the store. -
2020-07-06
Wichita Must Mask Up
After the Sedgwick County Commission voted 3-2 to not implement the governor's order requiring Kansans to wear masks in public places where social distancing was not possible, Wichita Mayor Brandon Whipple convened an emergency session of the City Council to debate and vote on a city-wide ordnance that would override the county's authority . By a vote of 4-3, Mayor Whipple's ordnance passed and became effective immediately, thus prompting local businesses to post signs like this one on their establishments. This sign reflects the first time during the pandemic that mask-wearing became an enforced mandate in Wichita, as the city struggled to control a virus that seemed to be at controllable levels just a few weeks before this photo was taken. -
2020-06-28
A Summer of Pathogens and Dust: Saharan Dust Sweeps Through Kansas
Amidst COVID-19's rising case numbers throughout the state, a massive plume of dust from the Sahara Desert swept across the Atlantic, the American South, and into the Great Plains, as seen in the gray-brownish haze in these photographs. The dust plume's arrival, while not an uncommon meteorological event, nevertheless prompted the Kansas Department of Health and the Environment to issue an air quality warning for vulnerable people, as it struggled to grapple with Kansas's growing COVID case load. -
2020-07-02
The Order That Wasn't: Kansas Executive Order 20-52
As COVID-19 case numbers accelerated in Kansas in the summer of 2020, Governor Laura Kelly issued this executive order declaring that Kansans must wear masks in public spaces, especially in places where the 6-foot distance rule was not possible, beginning on Friday, July 3, 2020. However, this order proved empty, since it allowed for local county authorities to enforce it, with several counties, including Sedgwick, which is home to the state's largest city, Wichita, to either opt out of the order entirely, or declare it a "strong recommendation." This document reflects the partisan politics that stymied Kansas's COVID-19 response efforts, as Democratic Governor Kelly eventually relinquished her statewide executive authority to direct the anti-virus effort in favor of a decentralized, locally-driven patchwork response favored by the state GOP, which had earlier passed legislation to curb her executive powers and threatened lawsuits against what they perceived to be a gross over-reach of executive power. -
2020-03-30
Socially Distanced Reception: MCRD San Diego
This screenshot showcases B Company, 1st Recruit Training Battalion's early morning reception at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego (MCRD San Diego), the Marine Corps' basic training installation for all recruits enlisted west of the Mississippi River. With social distancing an integral measure to counter the coronavirus's advance, recruits appear to be staggered in formation so as to avoid shoulder-to-shoulder contact, as indicated by the empty yellow footprints that would normally be occupied four to a row. However, it must be noted that at this date, none of the recruits have masks, and neither do the receiving sergeants in the photo's background, therefore underscoring the difficulties of rapidly adapting to a novel infectious disease whose spread could have dire consequences in a military environment. -
2020-04-20
Florida Army Guard Deploys to Nursing Home
These screenshots of pictures from an article posted on the Department of Defense's website detail how the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team has traded in their rifles for PPE and COVID-19 test kits. Deployed to the Alexander Nininger, Jr., Veterans Nursing Home in Pembroke Pines, Florida, these soldiers conduct tests as mobile teams, while administering tests to staff before entering the facility. Moreover, these screenshots also give an idea of the total scope of the Florida Guard's COVID-19 mission, including its operations beyond nursing home facilities. -
2020-06-08
Training New Marines in a New Reality
This screenshot from the United States Marine Corps Recruit Training Depot Parris Island Facebook offers a look into some of the adjustments the military has made in order to stem the spread of COVID-19 within its ranks. In a telling sign of the pandemic-era, these new recruits all wear protective masks in order to prevent possibly-infected water droplets from escaping into the air and triggering an outbreak within the barracks, an omnipresent threat, especially in boot camp. -
2020-06-29
Coronavirus Invades al-Jaber Airbase
By infecting nearly every corner of the globe, COVID-19 further demonstrated its reach by invading the self-contained confines of US military bases, such as al-Jaber airbase in Kuwait. This screenshot, which features masked US Marines and airmen preparing a field kitchen, provides a glimpse into this self-contained world, with the headline revealing that nothing is immune to the coronavirus. -
2020-05-07
A Permanently Disqualifying Condition
This memo from the United States Military Entrance Processing Command outlines certain guidelines for MEP stations to follow when testing and evaluating applicants for military service during the pandemic. One of its provisions specifically states that an established history of COVID-19 will be classified as a "permanently disqualifying condition," thus making the applicant unfit for induction. -
2020-06-25
Protect Your Fellow Citizens...Please.
Affixed to the jungle gym at Sunset Park in west Wichita, Kansas, this sign encourages Wichitans to protect each other and prevent COVID-19's spread by adopting the listed measures. This photo was taken against the backdrop of rising case numbers in Kansas, as well as in neighboring Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, as local authorities in Sedgwick County opted to continue re-opening without imposing any restrictions to mitigate the virus's transmission. Given the local government's "hands-off" approach, the effectiveness of any and all mitigation efforts rested solely with citizens' willingness to cooperate. -
2020-06-25
The Sound of Silence: COVID Summer 2020
On June 24, 2020, the city of Wichita, Kansas, announced that it would not open any of the city's municipal water parks, splash pads, or swimming pools for the duration of the summer. Pools like west Wichita's Harvest Park, shown here, would normally be teeming with people on hot summer days, but COVID-19 defied public health officials' predictions of a summer remission, with case numbers surging across the South and Central Plains. Kansas suffered an influx of summer COVID infections due in part to a politically-driven, decentralized re-opening plan that devolved authority to county commissions and local officials, while relegating what had once been mandatory state executive orders to mere "suggestions." With Kansas and surrounding states grappling with widespread illnesses, the summer of 2020 was marked by empty pools and filling hospitals. -
2020-04-28
Massachusetts Commissioner of Public Health Orders: April 28 - May 12, 2020
These two orders, issued by the Massachusetts Public Health Commissioner in late April and early May of 2020, waive the time frame for CNA training and the need for health screenings in Massachusetts schools. Both of these mandates reflected the constant need to buttress the number of frontline medical personnel available for service, as well as the fact that Massachusetts schools would no longer require such screenings due to the transition to virtual learning.