The message is clear: avoid the US. It is truly shocking to see these brilliant, dedicated scientists having to find contingency solutions to make up for funding shortfalls. A country willingly giving up scientific leadership. For what?

such situations before, and that people back then were just as scared and confused as I was at the time. I'm thankful to pope Francis for reminding me about our shared humanity, not only with people in the world today, but also across the centuries.

The crucifix that was used for this ceremony was first used for this purpose in 1522, during an outbreak of "the plague" in Rome (I can't find evidence whether it was indeed the black plague, but I'd say it's pretty likely). Seeing this made me feel very deeply that humankind had faced

were a powerful image of all the sacrifices people were making to fight Covid-19. The pope was doing what he thought most useful, which is to pray for the world. But mostly, the image of the pope praying made me feel connected to the people in previous times facing similar epidemics.

Seeing the pope perform this prayer and this blessing meant a lot to me, not only because of its religious significance. First of all, I remember St. Peter's square totally empty, in stark contrast to the crowds that we are used to seeing. This, and the flashing lights of the ambulances

At the time of this picture (March 27th, 2020), everything was very scary. France had entered lockdown 10 days earlier, and all the curves were still going up, including in Italy where the epidemic had started earlier. It wasn't clear whether the healthcare system would hold.