"My fear, I have to put it away"

But many of the jobs being created amid the pandemic involve working at the front lines of the crisis. For those who grab hold of one of these economic lifelines, it could mean putting themselves and their loved ones at risk of contracting the potentially deadly illness. “It would be a calculated risk,” says Diaz, who’s trying to find a job before he burns through his four months worth of savings. As he sees it, we’ll all need people willing to expose themselves to danger to keep the rest of us going. “We need each other more than ever nowadays, and I think there’s going to have to be somebody, a lot of somebodies, who are going to be willing to go out there and engage.”

Like Diaz, Liliana Hernandez, a 42-year-old housekeeper, is also taking that risk. Her employer, the Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, told her to stop coming to work this week after bookings dried up. Her husband, a restaurant worker, recently lost his job as well. The couple has just two months’ worth of savings to support themselves and their teenage son. “Everybody is panicking,” says Hernandez, who’s going to try to find a job at a grocery store. “I’m concerned about getting infected or something like that, but we have to go on and continue to work. My fear, I have to put it away.”