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Brian Lairn on WNYC. Five years ago today, if you measure it as five years ago on the Monday,

schools were closed for the first time in New York City and elsewhere, and lockdown took hold for most people as the COVID pandemic was beginning its mass murder of 47,000 New Yorkers and

eventually a million Americans, according to government and private COVID tracker numbers.

New York City got labeled the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, perhaps the world.

Remember that?

But for people deemed essential workers, their job was to go forth and serve.

We used the term essential workers for first responders, health care providers, food delivery

workers, and others to this day. And as this was happening five years ago, a journalist named

Mitra Kalita, whose reporting is often on Jackson Heights Queens, where many essential workers lived

and live, and which might have been the epicenter of the epicenter, Mitra Kalita launched a

startup news organization that she called Epicenter NYC. It continues to this day on the lasting

impact of COVID, its intersection with immigration issues, and more.

Here's one archive clip of Mitra on this show. This is from March of 2021 when she was helping

get people access to COVID vaccines, which, if you remember, were originally scarce and very in

demand. She told the story of an immigrant who got caught in between aspects of

the bureaucracy while trying to get a shot. There was an essential worker who's undocumented. And as you

know, Brian, it's been a really challenging year for people on many fronts, but even just like

renewing your passport, right? Some consulents

have been closed, kind of the back and forth is very difficult with foreign government. So

this person has an expired foreign passport. His embassy, which is Japan, I won't give you his name,

but I can tell you he's Japanese, wouldn't

...