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I'm Gene Demby.

I'm Karen Grigsby-Bates sitting in for Cherine and this is CodeSwitch from mpr.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left us all with a lot of uncertainty.

We're trying to check on our loved ones. We're worried about our next paychecks, our jobs, our physical health.

And we're not even sure what COVID-19 is doing to us. We're not sure how it works. Or like why some people who have COVID-19 don't have any symptoms.

And that's even as this coronavirus continues to kill thousands and thousands of people in the United States every day.

We all have so many questions right now. So this is Ask CodeSwitch the pandemic edition.

If you've been rocking with us for a minute, you already know the deal. Ask CodeSwitch is where we tackle your questions.

We put out a call out for your questions around race and identity in this particular moment we're living in.

And y'all asked us some tough questions about the pandemic obviously. And the fissures and frailties in our society that our response to this moment has exposed.

Yeah, and it's stuff like spatial distancing. We're very aware of that six foot buffer that we need to keep.

And when it doesn't get kept sometimes violence ensued because people are scared.

You know, you used to get a side eye if you walk down the street and somebody coughed and didn't cover their mouth.

Now they might get assaulted because people are frantic. They're afraid of dying. They're not exactly sure how this virus is transmitted.

And they don't want to take any chances.

Right, that's right. I mean, it's all of these anxieties that people had in the pre-coronavirus world heightened by potentially fatal illness.

If you cough on me, am I going to die? That's like something to contemplate.

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