A Letter From Northern Michigan, Where Remote Is Not Remote Enough to Escape COVID

A Professor Who Finds a Home in the Upper Peninsula No Longer Has the Heart to Return to the Classroom

Last winter, I felt pressure and spasms beneath my breastbone and went in for a cardiac stress test. Two days later, I left the hospital with a stent in the circumflex coronary artery and a plastic pill organizer packed with statins, blood thinners, and beta blockers. I had been a hale 63-year-old who hiked miles each day, lifted weights and ate and drank sensibly—most of the time, anyway. Now I’m a high-risk senior with a pre-existing condition, a baby boomer presenting a bullseye to COVID-19.

At my age, some physiological organ …