Come ascoltare le città (Places Journal)

For months, the Covid-19 virus has passed from body to body around the world. Its corporeal work is silent, but it reshapes the soundscape wherever it goes.
Coughs and sneezes turn paranoid heads; ventilators whoosh in hospital rooms; streets go suddenly quiet, as people shelter inside. Kids home from school create a new daytime soundtrack, and neighbors gather on balconies in the evening, to sing together or applaud health workers. As physicians monitor the rattle of afflicted lungs, the rest of us listen for acoustic cues that our city is convalescing, that we’ve turned inward to prevent transmission.
https://placesjournal.org/article/urban-auscultation-or-perceiving-the-action-of-the-heart