Afflicted Living

The Pandemic's Deep Impact on the Elderly

The Chinese novelist Fang Fang, who has lived most of her life in Wuhan, documented her days during Wuhan's dramatic Covid-19 lockdown from January 25 through March 24, 2020, in Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City. She is in her sixties and writes with the perspective of one who has seen the burdens placed on both the elderly and the young during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. As the epidemic in Wuhan wore on, Fang Fang predicted that there would be lasting consequences from the social isolation and massive number of deaths. On February 12 she wrote,

Here in Wuhan it is hard to find anyone who isn't experiencing some form of psychological trauma from all this. This is something that...