When COVID-19 spread across the globe, people experienced protection measures such as social distancing, self-isolation, and self-quarantine as a kind of shutting down or putting on hold of life. Many referred to this experience as a pause. Calling attention to the long history of grappling with pausing in writing on plagues and pandemics, Julian Haladyn explores the pause in its social, political, and personal manifestations over the extended pandemic.