The pivotal email from President L. Rafael Reif arrived in the inboxes of the MIT community on March 10, 2020. After weeks of monitoring the emerging coronavirus, it was decision time: “We have come to see that our community has a significant role to play in the concerted public health response to this regional, national and global threat,” he wrote. The full extent of that role wasn’t yet clear as students immediately prepared to leave campus, followed by the majority of faculty and staff, to decrease the risk of spreading…
