1 . On March 16th I left the offices of The Economist to head home. That was the last day when all editorial staff assembled in our London office. And, at the time of writing, no date for a return to the office is in _______

It is remarkable how quickly we have adapted. The newspaper has been written, edited and produced from couches and kitchen tables. January and February seem like an ancient era — the BC (before coronavirus) to the new AD (after _______).

The shift may _______ great workplace transformations in the 19th and 20th centuries, and it has been a much more sudden transition than occurred with factories, enabled by advanced economies that revolve around services instead of manufacturing. Back in the 1970s, when Britain adopted a three-day week (to commit a miners strike), there were power cub and TV stations had to close down early. This pandemic has not turned the lights _______

Not only that, it has made remote work seem both normal and acceptable. In the past employees who stayed home had to overcome the _______ that they were bunking off (偷懒). Now those who insist on being at the office sound self-important.

Things are _______, of course. Video calls Jack the spontaneity of a normal meeting; no off-the-cuff (即兴的) remarks to lighten the mood. Distance makes it difficult to generate camaraderie. Creativity is probably harder to foster. Experts say new ideas come from weak links in networks — i.e., people you meet occasionally. Such “ _______ collisions” have become rarer.

Yet _________ offices will not disappear, it is hard to imagine that working life will return to BC ways. For more than a century workers have stuffed themselves onto crowded trains and buses to get into the office. For the past two months they have not had to commute. _______, for their part, have maintained expensive offices in city centers because they needed to gather staff in one place. The rent is only part of the cost; there are the cleaning, lighting, printers, catering and security ________.

Another aspect of the AD era may be the disappearance of the five-day working week. Even before the pandemic many workers became used to taking phone calls or answering emails at the weekend. In the AD era, the ________ between home and working life, a useful way of relieving stress, will be even harder to sustain.

In future employees may work and take breaks when they please, with the company video call the only ________. The downside, however, is that the rhythm of life has been disrupted and new ________ are needed. Looking further out, the AD era may bring other changes. Some may decide to live in small towns where housing costs are lower, since they have no need to commute. Men will have ________ excuses to skip cleaning or child care if they are not disappearing to the office. In a sense, this is a(n) ________ to normal: until the 19th century most people worked at or close to their homes. But social historians may still regard 2020 as the start of a new age.

3 . It’s bad, but its not all bad. During the lockdown, to be confined in your home with the people you love most against an invisible disease may be, at times, uncomfortable. But it can also be like living inside a poem.

For me, especially early in the pandemic, it was also more than a little like living in a war zone again. The danger is real but also in some ways random. You assess risk constantly. In the first days of New York’s lockdown, at the market closest to my house, the handle of the shopping cart stared up at me. It was a bluish-purple strand of plastic that seemed to hold death. I had left the house without wipes. My son was climbing on everything.

People said it felt like living in a horror movie. That was not the sensation. A horror movie moves between fear and the delighted anticipation of fear. The feeling in the market was the leaden tug of dread. It was steady, and pressed you down, the way a survivor of a bombing says a blast wave does.

It was also a kind of gift. Against this backdrop, what you value in life is more vivid. You can’t call it a silver lining, but there is a quality of light involved, a lining that lights up edges. As a friend said after receiving a stage 4 cancer diagnosis, “A mirror doesn’t work without backing. You need the black.”

That is the value in these days.

Ordinarily, to experience what much of the country was experiencing in kitchens and family rooms, you would have had to get yourself to join the army. I once was a war correspondent and ran a news center for a while in a war zone. The danger was real but also in some ways random. We assessed risk constantly. And it was understood that any one of us would die for the other: “The truth of war,” David Finkel wrote in Thank You For Your Service, “is that it’s always about loving the guy next to you.”

And if you’re already in love with that person? Think of a man in bed, his family asleep down the hall as he dreams of faraway places. I was in faraway places, dreaming of a family asleep down the hall.

After we left the market I kept telling my son not to touch his face. So of course he reached for his cheek. Then he walked down a sidewalk that was all but empty. Knowing what’s important, people were staying home.

6 . As hundreds of thousands of people continue to die each day from this disease, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic(流行病) continues to impact almost every aspect of daily life for the global population.

The COVID-19 has devastated economies and caused great challenges to healthcare and food systems around the world. Globally, billions of people have been ordered to stay at home as a result of lockdowns. Social distancing and lockdowns have reduced diagnosis(诊断) rates of infectious diseases by reducing social contact.

However, individuals have avoided seeking help for other health problems due to lockdowns and avoidance of medical settings, leading to reduced diagnosis and treatment despite the problem still being there. Meanwhile, even in diagnosed cases, treatment for diseases and conditions such as cancer had to be put off in many cases due to the immediate threat of COVID-19 consuming health systems and their resources. Scientific research around the world has also focused on COVID-19, potentially delaying research and breakthroughs on other diseases.

Before the pandemic, around half of the world’s population did not have access to essential healthcare, and this number has been increased by the pandemic. Healthcare systems across the globe need to become more accessible and need to be prepared for future pandemic-like events in a way that will reduce the impact on the management of other diseases.

Overall, it is generally believed that no country was fully prepared to handle a pandemic, particularly one at the degree of the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most significant lessons that can be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is the importance of political will in its role in protecting people from pandemic diseases. In order to ensure that the world is better prepared for the next new infectious agent, public health systems must remain committed to developing adequate surveillance (监察) programmes and prompt diagnostic techniques.

Hard Labour

When James returned from the hospital after the birth of his son, he was surprised to find a bottle of whisky and some cans of beer on his doorstep. The mystery was soon solved. Under covid-19 rules, James was allowed into the hospital     1    his partner Annie was due to give birth only once active labour had begun.

Thirty-six hours after     2    (admit)for an induction(生产), Annie found herself on a delivery ward in the early hours of the morning desperately trying to wake up her sleeping husband by phone. When that failed, she resorted to ordering a delivery from a local store in the hope     3    the doorbell would prove more effective. In the event, he woke before the booze arrived.

James made it to the hospital on time and all went well.     4    have not been so lucky. “I’ve heard real horror stories of what women have had to face alone,     5    it’s awful news at a scan or going through a difficult birth     6    your partner there,” says Joeli Brearley of Pregnant Then Screwed, a campaign group. As Britain locked down in March, hospitals limited the number of visitors allowed on their premises(场所). Non-essential retail reopened in June, followed by pubs and restaurants in July, but tight restrictions     7    (remain)in place so far limiting access to maternity services and post-birth visits by new fathers. A petition(请愿书)calling for the rules     8    (loosen)across Britain has received over 440,000 signatures and the backing of 60 MPs.

The Royal College of Midwives, a trade union and professional body, acknowledges that “the support of a partner during scans and labour is important”, but argues that restricting access to some services means that “maternity teams     9    continue to deliver good-quality, safe care, protecting pregnant women and the midwives who care for them.” Others are     10    (convinced). “It’s important to remember that the vast majority of birth partners live with the woman giving birth,” says Jeremy Davies of the Fatherhood Institute, a think-tank. Evidence suggests the presence of partners leads to better medical outcomes, partly because it reduces stress and anxiety during birth.

9 . Sundays are for sewing. That much, at least, has not changed for Bo Dollis Jr.

During Memorial Day weekend, after New Orleans officials relaxed social distancing rules, the Big Chief of the Wild Magnolias Mardi Gras Indians got his tribe together for the first time since everything came unglued. About 15 people came, and they sat together on folding chairs, laughing, joking, and sewing. Each had an open toolbox stuffed with small plastic bags of beads (珠子) at their feet and a stretched canvas across their laps. They shared advice and suggestions as easily as they passed around needles, with which they attached beads to the canvas in the shape of bears, horses, and native people.

For Dollis, the sewing session marked a return to normalcy and an opportunity to continue sharing this New Orleans tradition he learned from his father. It ends each spring when tribes across the city unveil their year’s work: A hand- beaded masterpiece of color and feathers—a new suit—that shines in the southern sunlight as the tribes sing, dance, and show off how pretty they are.

Traditionally, Mardi Gras Indians have but a few days to wear their suits, including Mardi Gras Day and St. Joseph’s Day in March. The coronavirus, however, interrupted this tradition. New Orleans officials shut down public events and began enforcing social distancing just days before St. Joseph’s.

Instead of parading on the streets with his tribe, Dollis sat at home that night and cried. “That was a heartbreaker.” he said.

For many of New Orleans’ chefs, musicians, dancers, Mardi Gras Indians, singers, and street performers, the coronavirus has meant a loss of income, opportunity, and stability. For some, it’s brought sickness and grief. And for all, it has challenged how they identify and express themselves. But this city has been forged by challenge for hundreds of years. Over its history, one thing has proven true: New Orleans can not be infected, flooded, burned, or defeated.

“A disaster is a disaster. Hard times are hard times,” said Dollis. “We know every year we should expect a hurricane, so we’re psychologically prepared to handle it. ... Every year, we make a new suit. It’s in the genes.”

10 . Austria took a striking step to combat the coronavirus pandemic when its government announced that people would not be allowed to enter places such as supermarkets without wearing a face mask.

Some might roll their eyes at this, including many scientists. There is disagreement over whether wearing low-quality masks prevents people from inhaling (吸入) the virus, even if it does reduce the chances of them spreading it by sneezing or coughing.

Austria will only be distributing regular masks free to shoppers at shop entrances, not the N95 respirators (which do reduce inhalation risks). Some US and European doctors believe mask-wearing is so pointless for those who do not usually face the direct risks medical staff are exposed to that they have urged consumers to donate any masks they have bought to hospitals instead.

Yet I think it would be a mistake to sneer at Austria’s move-for two reasons. First, wearing masks has one practical personal benefit: it reminds you to avoid touching your face. This matters.

The second reason is that mask-wearing is not just about individual psychology or behavior; it has social implications as well. As Christos Lynteris, a medical anthropologist at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, put it in an opinion column for The New York Times: “Members of a community wear masks not only to fight off disease in a pandemic. They wear masks also to show that they want to stick, and cope, together under the threat of pandemic.”

Some Europeans and Americans will scoff. Anglo-Saxon culture tends to prize individualism, not the type of collectivism that has often been valued in Asia. And in a city such as New York, mask-wearing has been such a minority practice that it has almost been associated with a sense of shame －in recent times especially, since some view it as a sign of sickness.

The point about mass mask-wearing is that this shame tends to disappear if everyone puts one on. In fact, not wearing a mask is now almost a source of shame in places such as Japan. And while it might be hard to imagine this becoming the case in the US, nothing should be ruled out, given how quickly the shock of COVID-19 is reshaping our ideas of risk, and leading to a rising appreciation in the west for collectivist values.

As Lynteris notes, epidemics should be understood not just as “biological events but also as social processes”, since this “is key to their successful containment (抑制)”. If rituals or symbols-like masks-help us to realize this, then so much the better.

To put it another way, beating COVID- 19 will not just require medical science, but a dose of social science too.