Pandemic Peaks Globally: The US became the country with the highest death toll, surpassing 20,000. It became the first nation to document over 2,100 deaths in a single day. The UK's death toll passed 10,000, while France reported 1,417 deaths in one day.
Boris Johnson Hospitalized: The UK Prime Minister spent several days in intensive care battling COVID-19, creating leadership uncertainty.
Lockdowns and Protests: Japan declared a state of emergency and NYC closed schools for the rest of the year. Simultaneously, the first anti-lockdown protests began in US state capitals, with healthcare workers counter-protesting.
Economic and Energy Crisis: OPEC and its allies agreed to the largest-ever oil production cut amidst a devastating price war.
April 2020 was the month of the count. The world, locked inside, was reduced to a stream of devastating statistics. This artifact simulates a vital signs monitor, a machine designed to measure life. But the machine is broken; its glitch is that it no longer tracks a heartbeat, but a "deathbeat." The numbers are not pulse rates, but the relentless, climbing tally of the dead.
The primary signal is this grim, repeating data. It is cold, clinical, and overwhelming.
The ghost in this machine is the first sign of social friction. As you move your cursor, the static of anti-lockdown protests interferes with the monitor's signal. It represents the moment the shared trauma of quarantine began to fracture, creating a new, dissonant noise that would define the next phase of the crisis. It is the sound of one reality pushing against another.