My sister and I were helping her get through this. And then they shut the doors. Now she’s all alone. Her meals are brought to her room. No one but staff are allowed to see her.

Our connection with mom is now by phone. My sister and I call her every day, at least once. I’ve talked to her about the coronavirus, about how it has affected the whole world. About how people are taking measures now to try to slow the spread of the virus so it doesn’t overrun the capabilities of the health-care system. I tell her it’s older people who are the most vulnerable, which is why her facility is doing everything it can to keep her safe.

I tell her about my job at The Progressive, how much of the magazine’s April/May issue was already written, edited, and even laid out on pages just as the coronavirus kicked into overdrive. By working through the weekend and into each night, we went back and rewrote nearly every piece in the package, in the space of six days. 

It so happened that the issue was already focused on poverty, income inequality, and lack of access to health care—all of which have gained urgency in the current crisis. It feels to me like our April/May magazine will be among the most important in The Progressive’s 111-year history. We are putting the finishing touches on it now, while also keeping up a vigorous pace producing daily COVID-19 coverage for our website.

We’re all sorry, after doing so much in just the final days of magazine production, that the April/May issue itself won’t reach readers until about three weeks after we go to press. That’s how it works given our U.S. mail class. Sending the issue First Class would cost about $28,000, a vast sum for an operation like ours.