On March 27 Juan Carlos sent me a video taken from his balcony, of police and military enforcing a curfew in Quito. This was not the first time Ecuador has been under curfew: six months ago the government imposed curfews in reaction to mass protests, led by indigenous groups, against austerity measures imposed by the government of President Lenin [sic] Moreno.

Had the epidemic not happened we would have been together at a conference in Honolulu, marking two years since we first met at a similar conference in San Francisco. We’ve stayed close ever since, and have spent perhaps 17 weeks together, in the United States, in Melbourne and, most romantically, on a cruise up the coast of Norway. For the first time since we met there can be no plans to see each other again.