Shutting down a lab while meeting the beast

The second week of March, as we were starting to realize Switzerland and ETH were likely to lock down, I lost my sense of taste. We all had more pressing problems so I just heaped salt on my food and let it go. My nose was dripping. Allergies, I thought. I got so cold waiting for a tram Monday night I was shaking uncontrollably, but it was cold; it went away by bedtime, and I felt otherwise OK, so I thought no more of it, not considering I likely had a fever. I was social distancing, working mostly from home, and handwashing. I didn’t have the Covid-19 symptoms people talk about, so I still did things like lab meeting on Tuesday. By Thursday I was so exhausted I cancelled everything and stumbled home. I reasoned it was stress from our collective normal turning upside down.

Saturday night came an ache deep in my lungs, and Sunday I suddenly got a high fever (39.4°C), crushing lung pain, some shortness of breath, and a cough. There was fear - what happens if it gets worse? It was bad, but what’s hospital bad? Luckily Monday I was a bit better, though still had lung pain. I called my doctor, who said I almost certainly had Covid-19, and to isolate the rest of the week. Then I went online. While it is easy to read about hospital cases, and panic that you might get pneumonia, even die, it’s comparatively hard to find what to expect from milder cases. Once I found it, I realized not only did my symptoms follow a standard timeline (including loss of sense of taste, a newly recognized symptom), but was shocked to find I was on day 8, not 2. I had been unwittingly contagious for a week. This is scary – well-intentioned people who would isolate at the first wheeze, can be out spreading this without realizing it. In my case, it seems I did not give it to anyone. A win for social distancing and a reminder how important it is.

As I lay slowly recovering and quarantined Monday, Switzerland shuttered and ETH announced its closure. I worried how to manage this remotely. Luckily the lab rose to the occasion, no one panicked, and they worked together to make our shutdown smooth. Other people in the lab were very good about winding down experiments. We had a few days to finish essentials, and then pretty much everything had to go into the freezers. We lost some experiments, but most can be restarted later when ETH opens again. Luckily we were able to get permission to water our plants to keep them alive through the shutdown. This is important because they take many months to grow and some are from irreplaceable seed stocks. Coordinating moving our teaching online has been more of an adventure, but here too everyone shouldering new burdens and using their creativity to come up with ways to maximize our block courses and practicals maintaining some educational value when we cannot do lab work. Currently the lab meets weekly via Zoom for lab meetings, most are doing analyses and/or reading and planning.

The excellent communication from ETH and D-BIOL were a big help. While physically isolating us, with Zoom and like-minded colleagues this shared upheaval can bring us together in surprising ways. I am hopeful that this time will allow us to rethink, refocus, and come back with new energy and community.