The Mother Lode: In the COVID-19 era, is it too soon to laugh? FacebookTwitterEmail Is it OK to find humor in the COVID-19 pandemic? “What the hell else can we do at this point but laugh?” my friend told me. But what if you lost a loved one to COVID-19? And then there are long-term side effects, suffering from long-haul COVID, “multiorgan effects,” or PTSD, which can be caused by distance learning — trust me. Not so funny. People in India are not laughing these days. I’ve struggled with this for the past year when writing about COVID. I look back at articles I wrote in February and March 2020 and want to climb under the covers and eat Haagen-Dazs white chocolate raspberry truffle ice cream by the gallon while watching “Outlander” again.