KING'S KLASS BLOG: Telling the visual story of our lives during the COVID-19 pandemic

Story and photos by Lori King
Toledo Blade Photojournalist

The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic first started to really sink in when my daughter received a text from a friend that Ohio State was suspending face-to-face instruction and going online.

Jolee was already home from OSU for spring break. We were in the living room watching TV when she looked at me with disbelief and read me the text. We thought it was a hoax, but moments later she received the official OSU email, and it was real. It was the evening of March 9.

Posted on the entrance door of the Huntington Center.

During the next few days, the University of Toledo, Owens Community College, Wayne State University and Kent State University all shuttered their classrooms and went online for what would end up being for the rest of the semester. These are schools where I currently teach as an adjunct, so I am on the other side of this, and currently scrambling to modify or cancel assignments and change deadlines.

We have since moved Jolee, 18, out of her dorm, and our other daughter Quinn, 20, a UT student, has chosen to stay with us rather than be alone in her campus apartment. We have our kids back.

The school closings are probably what made it real for them, but for me it was when I covered the last home Walleye game at the Huntington Center on March 11.

Loudly blaring from outdoors speakers above the entrance doors at the Huntington Center was a looping announcement:

One of about 10 fans in the empty stands cheers for the Walleye.

“Tonight’s game against Cincinnati will be played with a restricted attendance policy. Only official team members and credentialed personnel and media will be allowed to attend tonight’s game.”

It was even more surreal on the inside. If you’ve ever attended a Walleye hockey game, you know how loud and rowdy it can be. But on this night, there were only about 10 fans (family members of hockey players and staff) in an arena that holds 8,000 people. You could literally hear players yelling to each other, skates digging into the ice, and pucks hitting the protective net. The silence was unsettling.

As Blade photographers on the front lines of this pandemic, I believe it is our responsibility to show the public what is happening out there. While most citizens are forced to hunker down in their homes to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, we are out in the community visually telling the story of our lives.

Walleye GM Neil Neukam talks with Huntington's GM
Steve Miller on an empty floor, in front of a closed store.

For the past few weeks, we have been documenting men and women buying guns for self-protection, nurses testing sick patients for the Coronavirus, airport security agents disinfecting bins, BMV workers restricting access to their offices, college students prematurely moving out of their dorms, restaurant and store owners volunteering to pack food for delivery to the young and elderly, and panicked people stockpiling toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

To tell this story of worldwide disruption and fear due to this aggressive and deadly virus, photojournalists and journalists around the globe must be able to roam free, and given unprecedented access. That is the only way you can see and believe what is really happening.

As a Toledo Blade photojournalist, and I think I can speak for my colleagues, as well, I consider it a privilege to show you how humankind is dealing with a virus that might knock us down for a while, but not out.

We shall overcome, and I need my daughters to believe that.