My Brother’s Death Didn’t Have to Happen

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s oldest brother, Donald Reed Herring, died of COVID-19 in late April, and I heard that she sometimes mentioned this in conversations about policy, though she was reluctant to talk about it publicly. So when I interviewed her for a story about her pandemic-response work (and her prospects of getting picked to be Joe Biden’s running mate), it was only natural to ask how the pandemic had affected her personally.

For anyone who heard a Warren stump speech during the year she was running for president, her brothers were familiar characters, the Oklahoma family. The three of them were “the boys.” She was a