Category Archives: Epidemics

In which I break through

Posted on 7 January 2022 by Jennifer Rohn

Sometimes the things you fear the most aren’t as bad as the fear itself. About two years ago, I gave my first media interview on what was then generally referred to as “the Wuhan coronavirus”. It was still three days … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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In which pandemic storm clouds gather – again

Posted on 12 December 2021 by Jennifer Rohn

A number of months have slipped past since I last wrote here, two seasons under the bridge as my ramped-up academic life has consumed most of my free time. Then, it was the height of optimistic summer; now, the year … Continue reading → Continue reading →

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In which normal life flickers just ’round the corner

Posted on 10 April 2021 by Jennifer Rohn

Today on a neighbourhood walk with my son, blustery and cold with a few flecks of rain, we passed a window that still had a faded child-drawn rainbow and the advice to “stay safe”. It struck me as rather quaint, … Continue reading →

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In which we near end-game

Posted on 23 February 2021 by Jennifer Rohn

Sight for sore eyes January and February are always my least favorite months, but I can’t remember a winter when I longed for spring as desperately as this one. It’s the pandemic, of course, which has sucked the world dry … Continue reading →

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In which life imitates art, and an epidemic leaps off the page

Posted on 29 December 2020 by Jennifer Rohn

In mid-November, a journalist from BBC Southeast contacted me about a perplexing rise in COVID-positive cases in the nearby borough of Swale, a mainly rural part of Kent known for its fruit orchards, beer hops and vast areas of marshland … Continue reading →

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In which winter sets in

Posted on 29 November 2020 by Jennifer Rohn

Unexpected color Although winter has not yet formally begun, this is the time of year when the darkness stretches ahead into infinity. In the face of this, the prospect of brighter days, of snowdrops and crocuses pushing up from the … Continue reading →

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In which business is not quite as usual: the post-first-wave lab resumes

Posted on 23 August 2020 by Jennifer Rohn

Suspended animation: the lab awaits the return of its researchersBusiness as usual is the sort of mentality that’s probably only certain in retrospect. At the moment, the jury is still very much out. My lab reopened its doors a few … Continue reading →

Posted in academia, careers, Domestic bliss, Epidemics, Gardening, Joshua, staring into the abyss, The profession of science, work-life balance | Comments Off on In which business is not quite as usual: the post-first-wave lab resumes

In which the pandemic unfolds: a postcard from The Big One?

Posted on 15 March 2020 by Jennifer Rohn

Epidemics are works in progress. At any given moment in time, you can’t know how they will end. They are a curve on a graph of ultimately unknown trajectory; when you are just a dot on a growing curve, you … Continue reading →

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