The most striking thing about the scenes of Washington, D.C., that filled TV screens as Americans watched the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Joe Biden: the near-total absence of Washingtonians.
At the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool was lined by 400 lanterns, a memorial for the 400,000 killed in the U.S. to date by the novel coronavirus; 200,000 American flags filled the National Mall to stand in for the crowds who can’t attend the ceremony. Beyond the memorial core, patriotic symbols gave way to security checkpoints and unpeopled streets. The empty boulevards revealed the blueprint of the city, the L’Enfant Plan, normally hidden beneath the bustle of the capital — this week, reserved exclusively for thousands of soldiers.