“The COVID-19 crisis is altering our relationship to material things, and the stuff of this crisis will be important sources for historians. The stark choices we are all confronting as we practice social distancing—or we or our loved ones face quarantine, hospitalization, or job loss—highlight what objects may afford or allow for. Some items, like cloth masks, might feel vital to our personal and community safety and our ability to move in the world, while other objects may seem to hold hidden risks, traces of unknown people who have engaged with them before. Concerns over the level of PPE and ventilators are simultaneously understood as supplies in a chain of financial decisions and as vital life-saving tools for medical staff and patients.” –Prof. Sarah Anne Carter
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