This is an On the Media podcast Extra. I'm Bob Garfield. And 2020, the year of authoritarianism, of isolation, of deadly pandemic is about to be over. But then again, say for a new calendar, what really separates the end of 2020 from the beginning of 2021?

We'll still be in the midst of a pandemic, depending upon the day of the week.

Depending upon the time of day, it can feel either like we're inching toward a better future

or treading water in a perpetual state of deja vu. Since news of the coronavirus first

reached our shores, our plight mostly has been framed in terms of time. From how long it takes

for the virus to take hold? Most estimates of the incubation period range from one to 14 days.

To how long we'll be sheltering

inside waiting for a vaccine when do you get the majority the overwhelming majority of the

population vaccinated so you can get that umbrella of herd immunity and i believe if we're

efficient about it and we convince people to get vaccinated,

we can accomplish that by the end of the late spring, early summer.

To what all the stoppage of time is doing to our relationships.

Millions of families across the USA are sheltering in place.

But instead of bringing them closer, some married couples are saying it's time, at least

when the crisis is over, to go their separate ways and file for divorce. And our pocketbooks.

People could not pay their rent this past month, and rent is due again in a week.

We spend our lives bound to a clock and a calendar that tell us what to do and what to expect.

But now there are more than 20 million Americans jobless, untethered from routine,

hundreds of thousands fighting a virus that could cut their times on Earth dramatically,

and all of us wait out a life stoppage of unknown duration.

We may find ourselves outside of time, passing it, but incapable of marking it.

Time now for the most important question of the morning.

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