This spring, a strangely moving commercial aired across New York State.
It opens with a series of lonely Covid-19 lockdown scenes: an avenue in Manhattan devoid of signs of life, a soulless subdivision, a quiet farm.
Then, as the melancholy music picks up, we see young adults slipping on their jackets and leaving their homes. The voice-over begins: “Do you feel the calling to care for others?” Cut to random people converging on one building where they’re presumably transformed into nurses, hospital aides, and care staff for seniors. “Then you have the caring gene,” the narrator continues, directing viewers to CaringGene.org, a job board site.