The Washington Post National Weekly. May 10, 2020

SUNDAY, MAY 10, 2020

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IN COLLABORATION WITH

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A working mom’s quarantine life This Mother’s Day, eight women balancing careers and kids concede PAGE 812 that thriving is out of reach. Surviving is enough. PAGE

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KLMNO Weekly

The coronavirus pandemic

An uneasy tolerance of surveillance

BY K AREEM F AHIM, M IN J OO K IM AND S TEVE H ENDRIX

ments on privacy by corporations, Scott-Railton said. “People are anxious. They are worried. They want to go back to normal, to handle doorknobs, to online date.

“We are looking to anyone who is pitching hope.”

in Istanbul

A

smartphone app in Turkey asked for Murat Bur’s identity number, his father’s name and information about his relatives. Did he have any underlying health conditions, the app wondered, presenting him a list of options. How was he feeling at the moment, it asked.

It also requested permission to track his movements.

None of this felt intrusive to Bur, a 38-year-old personal trainer. The app, which he had voluntarily downloaded, had helpfully warned him that his neighborhood was a coronavirus hot spot.

“There are people in our country still having parties and picnics. I do not see the harm in people being followed,” he said. “There is an extraordinary situation in the world.”

To the feelings of fear, restlessness, insecurity and sorrow taking hold around the globe, the pandemic era has added another certainty: being watched.

In a matter of months, tens of millions of people in dozens of countries have been placed under surveillance. Governments, private companies and researchers observe the health, habits and movements of citizens, often without their consent. It is a massive effort, aimed at enforcing quarantine rules or tracing the spread of the coronavirus, that has sprung up pell-mell in country after country.

“This is a Manhattan Projectlevel problem that is being addressed by people all over the place,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, a research center at the University of Toronto.

He is among a group of researchers and privacy advocates who say there is not enough debate over the consequences and utility of the new surveillance tools, and no indication how long the scrutiny will last — even as the flood of prying apps are becoming a reality for millions of people, like

Ozan Kose/Agence france- presse/Getty Images

More people accept widespread monitoring as a ‘necessary evil’ to combat the coronavirus solitude and face masks.

Because of the pandemic, surveillance is a “necessary evil,” said Lee Yoon-young, a South Korean university student who was under strict, government-monitored quarantine after returning home from her studies overseas. “I am not disturbed since I understand that stronger quarantine control allows those not under stay-athome order to continue on with their lives without a nationwide lockdown,” she said.

At least 27 countries are using data from cellphone companies to track the movements of citizens, according to Edin Omanovic, the advocacy director for Privacy International, which is keeping a record of surveillance programs.

At least 30 countries have developed smartphone apps for the public to download, he said.

The monitoring has raised fewer objections in countries that have been more successful at battling the virus, like Singapore, and provoked a much louder debate in Europe and the United States — a

difference that is reflected in the numbers of people who voluntarily download tracking applications.

In South Korea, millions of people have signed up to use websites or apps that show how the virus is spreading. More than 2 million Australians quickly downloaded a coronavirus contact-tracing app that was released. But 3 in 5 Americans say they are unwilling or unable to use an infection-alert system being developed by Google and Apple, a Washington PostUniversity of Maryland poll has found.

Epidemiologists and government health officials have taken a central role in designing some of the coronavirus tracking programs. Privacy groups have been far more concerned when intelligence agencies have taken the lead, as they have in Pakistan and Israel, or when governments outsource tracing to private companies.

The pandemic has all but silenced the debate about encroach-

Police officers take a selfie on a deserted street in Istanbul.

Turkey is one of nearly 30 countries using apps to try to curb the virus’s spread.

‘No escaping it’ Turkey, which is wrestling with one of the worst outbreaks in the world, uses technology to track the spread of the virus in at least two ways. One is the app, called Life Fits in the Home, which solicits personal details to track infections and provides information, including the location of nearby hospitals and pharmacies.

The government has said that it is doing mandatory tracking of people 65 years or older, who are required to quarantine, and sending them cellphone messages when they venture out of their homes.

There has been little public backlash against the surveillance in Turkey, where people are accustomed to an intrusive and increasingly authoritarian central government. Any misgivings have also been tempered by a feeling the state should be taking stronger measures to control the outbreak.

Cigdem Sahin, an economics professor at Istanbul University, said she didn’t think twice before downloading the tracking app, even though she is normally wary of government surveillance.

“I actually think it might be useful to surveil the spread of corona — if the system is used effectively and does not give an error,” she said.

“I have no doubt that Turkey will use such apps as a vehicle for pressure and surveillance when need be,” Sahin said.

But her primary concern was whether the app could work properly. It told her little she did not already know about her neighborhood, called Fatih, where there was a high concentration of infections. So she stopped using the app.

“We are being watched and our lives are being recorded, and one

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The coronavirus pandemic “We are being watched and our lives are being recorded, and one wonders how to deal with it.

There is no escaping it.”

wonders how to deal with it,” she said. “There is no escaping it.”

One of the most critical questions is whether the programs actually yield reliable information about infection chains. Hasan Kasap, 73, a retired university professor, said he received a text message from the Health Ministry last month warning him to stay home, though he said he had not left his apartment in weeks.

“This approach made me lose my trust in this institution or this tracking system and even made me feel insulted,” he said. “Location information is private. It should remain private.” After the message, he turned off the location tracker, he said.

Virus-tracking apps South Korea has never imposed a nationwide lockdown or travel restrictions in response to the coronavirus, only issuing strong advisories against nonessential travel as part of a national social distancing campaign. The country’s coronavirus response, featuring widespread testing for infections, is often held up as a model around the world.

As part of that effort, South Korea’s health authorities track the movement of people and then later retrace the steps of those diagnosed with the virus by using GPS phone tracking, credit card records, surveillance video and interviews with patients. The patient travel histories are published without names to help others identify whether they crossed paths with a virus carrier.

Another smartphone app monitors thousands of people under self-quarantine and reports their movements to the government.

Lee Yoon-young, the university student who has been under the remotely monitored quarantine, said she welcomed the geo-positioning app on her phone that allowed the government to pinpoint her location.

Lee returned to South Korea after her studies in the United Kingdom were disrupted by the pandemic. The contrast between the government response in the two countries was stark. In Brighton, where she studied, she had relied on patchy news reports to identify virus-prone locations to avoid. In South Korea, she has found it reassuring to be able to see online travel histories of virus

Catherine Lai/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

carriers.

But the Korean travel data can be accessed not just by health-conscious residents but also voyeuristic onlookers, which was “concerning,” she said, adding that personal information about infected people should be redacted.

Singapore also mobilized early to contain the epidemic by aggressively tracking chains of infection, imposing harsh penalties on patients who violated quarantine rules and mounting ubiquitous public awareness campaigns — while avoiding a full lockdown.

Cellphone apps were developed to help enforce self-quarantine rules and aid the contact-tracing effort by making use of Bluetooth technology.

Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan, an author and journalist who lives in New York, saw how strictly quarantine rules were enforced when she flew to Singapore in late March and was forced to self-isolate in a hotel. Her location was monitored through her cellphone, and twice a day, she was required to verify her whereabouts for the government, occasionally by sending a picture of her surroundings.

Once, she got a video call from health officials, just to make sure she was where she said she was.

“They were very strict about it,” she said. “As they should be.”

Her experience in New York, with one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks, made her more willing to accept government monitoring and less tolerant of people flouting quarantine and other distancing rules. “These are desperate times. I would have fought for my

Cigdem Sahin, an economics professor at Istanbul University

personal liberties on many levels before. Now I am the one trying to restrict the people around me. I am more of a scold,” she said.

The intrusions were easier to accept because Singapore’s government appeared to have citizens’ welfare in mind, and no “ulterior motives,” she said. But the number of intrusions was rising: one government app allowed people to report violations by their neighbors. More recently, some grocery stores had required people to provide their identity numbers to enter.

“It’s worrying once you give up these liberties,” she said. “Is this the way it’s always going to be?”

‘More afraid of corona’ The experience of countries hurriedly deploying apps and similar surveillance software highlights the limits of such technology and the challenge of wide-scale public buy-in even in places that are largely open to being watched.

Experts warn, for example, that apps relying on Bluetooth radios can provide inexact location data and falsely identify people as infected.

Jason Bay, the director of Singapore’s contact-tracing app, called TraceTogether, said in an online post last month, “If you ask me whether any Bluetooth contact tracing system deployed or under development, anywhere in the world, is ready to replace manual contact tracing, I will without qualification say that the answer is no.”

Scott-Railton of Citizen Lab

TraceTogether is the contact-tracing app released by the government in Singapore, which is one of the countries that has been more successful in battling the novel coronavirus.

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said the effectiveness of such apps was ultimately determined by “human social behavior and racial and age demographics.”

Apps are of limited utility unless a large percentage of a country’s population downloads them, and even then, the reach of the software is limited to people who own smartphones, which often excludes lower-income people, racial minorities and people over 65, he said.

Some surveillance initiatives have also run into organized efforts to rein them in.

In Israel, a group of civil liberties groups went to court in March to block a far-reaching effort by Israel’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, to track the cellphones of covid-19 patients. The agency uses cellphone location signals of known coronavirus cases and its own vast trove of data to detect users who have been in proximity to an infected person — information health officials use to alert people to self-isolate.

A few weeks ago, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the government tracking would require parliamentary legislation to continue much past the end of April, when the emergency measure was due to expire.

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, was one of the groups that filed a petition with the high court objecting to the government’s reliance on emergency powers to expand the reach of its security apparatus. “Surveillance violates the constitutional right to privacy and there exist other tools to deal with the coronavirus,” said Suhad Bishara, an attorney for Adalah.

Roxanne Halper, 60, who works in international development and leans toward the left end of Israel’s political spectrum, said she would normally be wary of government surveillance, but not this time.

“I feel like I should have a problem with it and yet I don’t,” Halper said during a phone interview from her home on a small kibbutz between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Like many, she said health considerations now seem more pressing than privacy. She had even downloaded a voluntary government app.

“I take comfort from that,” she said. “I can’t be afraid of the [risk to privacy] right now. I’m much more afraid of corona and what it’s doing to society,” she said. n

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The coronavirus pandemic

A mental health pandemic looms BY

W ILLIAM W AN

T

hree months into the coronavirus pandemic, the country is on the verge of another health crisis, with daily doses of death, isolation and fear generating widespread psychological trauma.

Federal agencies and experts warn that a historic wave of mental-health problems is approaching: depression, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.

Just as the initial outbreak of the novel coronavirus caught hospitals unprepared, the United States’ mental-health system — vastly underfunded, fragmented and difficult to access before the pandemic — is even less prepared to handle this coming surge.

“That’s what is keeping me up at night,” said Susan Borja, who leads the traumatic stress research program at the National Institute of Mental Health. “I worry about the people the system just won’t absorb or won’t reach. I worry about the suffering that’s going to go untreated on such a large scale.”

Data shows depression and anxiety roiling the nation already.

Nearly half of Americans report the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. A federal emergency hotline for people in emotional distress registered a more than 1,000 percent increase in April compared with the same time last year. Last month, roughly 20,000 people texted that hotline, run by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Online therapy company Talkspace reported a 65 percent jump in clients since mid-February.

Text messages and transcribed therapy sessions collected anonymously by the company show coronavirus-related anxiety dominating patients’ concerns.

The suicides of two New York health-care workers highlight the risks, especially to those combating the pandemic. Lorna Breen, a

Amanda Andrade-Rhoades For The Washington Post

Anxiety, depression rise as some U.S. clinics are on the brink of collapse with little funding to help top New York emergency room doctor, had spent weeks contending with coronavirus patients flooding her hospital and sometimes dying before they could be removed from ambulances. She had no history of mental illness, her relatives have said in interviews, but struggled increasingly with the emotional weight of the outbreak before she died. Days later, reports emerged that a Bronx emergency medical technician also killed himself.

Researchers have created models — based on data collected after natural disasters, terrorist attacks and economic downturns — that show a likely increase in suicides, overdose deaths and substanceuse disorders.

And yet, out of the trillions of dollars Congress passed in emergency coronavirus funding, only a tiny portion is allocated for mental health. At the same time, therapists have struggled to bring their practices online and to reach vulnerable groups because of restrictions on licensing and reim-

bursement. Community behavioral health centers — which treat populations most at risk — are struggling to stay financially solvent and have begun closing programs.

“If we don’t do something about it now, people are going to be suffering from these mental health impacts for years to come,” said Paul Gionfriddo, the president of the advocacy group Mental Health America. That could further harm the economy as stress and anxiety debilitate some workers and further strain the medical system as people go to emergency rooms with panic attacks, overdoses and depression, he said.

Just as the country took drastic steps to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed by infections, experts say, it needs to brace for the coming wave of behavioral health needs by providing widespread mental health screenings, better access to services through telehealth, and a sizable infusion of federal dollars.

Isolation and economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic are already resulting in a sharp spike in people seeking mental health help.

Dire warnings in data When diseases strike, experts say, they cast a shadow pandemic of psychological and societal injuries. The shadow often trails the disease by weeks, months, even years. And it receives scant attention compared with the disease, even though it, too, wreaks carnage, devastates families, harms and kills.

Mental-health experts are especially worried about the ongoing economic devastation. Research has established a strong link between economic upheaval and suicide and substance use. A study of the Great Recession that began in late 2007 found that for every percentage point increase in the unemployment rate, there was about a 1.6 percent increase in the suicide rate.

Using such estimations, a Texas nonprofit — Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute — created models that suggest if unemployment amid the coronavirus pandemic ends up rising 5 percentage points to a level similar to the Great Recession, an additional 4,000 people could die of suicide and an additional 4,800 from drug overdoses.

But if unemployment rises by 20 percentage points — to levels recorded during the 1930s Great Depression — suicides could increase by 18,000 and overdose deaths by more than 22,000, according to Meadows.

“These projections are not intended to question the necessity of virus mitigation efforts,” cautioned authors of the Meadows report, “but rather to inform health system planning.”

Suicide experts and prevention groups have deliberately refrained from discussing too widely death projections such as those from the Meadows Institute. Experts say reporting excessively or sensationally on suicide can lead to increases in suicide attempts, an effect known as contagion. And the factors involved in any suicide are often complex, they point out.

“Could the numbers go up? Yes, but it isn’t inevitable. We know suicide is preventable,” said Christine Moutier, chief medical officer

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the coronavirus pandemic for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

Research has shown interventions make a marked difference, such as limiting access to guns and lethal drugs, screening patients for suicidal thoughts, treating underlying mental conditions and ensuring access to therapy and crisis lines to call and text.

“That’s why we need to act now,” Moutier said.

A severely broken system This approaching wave of mental injuries will be met in coming months by a severely broken system.

In the United States, 1 in 5 adults endure the consequences of mental illness each year. Yet less than half receive treatment, federal statistics show. As suicide rates have fallen around the world, the rate in the United States has climbed every year since 1999, increasing 33 percent in the past two decades.

Part of the problem, experts say, is the markedly different way the United States treats mental illness compared with physical illness.

In normal times, a heart attack patient rarely has trouble securing a cardiologist, operating table and hospital bed. But patients in mental crises, studies show, consistently struggle to get their insurance to pay for care. Even with insurance, they struggle to find therapists and psychiatrists willing to take that payment.

Experts warn that such parity and access problems may only worsen with the pandemic, which has upended the functions of hospitals, insurance companies and mental health centers.

In a joint letter a few weeks ago, leaders in mental health and substance abuse treatment pleaded for the Trump administration’s help. The letter — signed by the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and 12 other organizations — asked federal officials to save community mental health centers facing financial collapse.

The letter also asked the government to lift reimbursement restrictions that have prevented therapists from using phone calls to treat patients. The Trump administration has indicated it would do so.

Weekly

Pfizer now testing vaccine on people

A survey of local mental health and drug addiction centers showed the pandemic has already left many on the brink of financial collapse, preventing them from providing services that generate much of their reimbursement revenue. More than 60 percent said they would run out of funding in less than three months and had already closed some programs.

In a letter to Congress in early April, mental health organizations estimated that $38.5 billion is needed to save treatment providers and centers and that $10 billion more is needed to respond to the coronavirus pandemic. On Friday, the federal substance abuse and mental health agency said it had been allocated less than 1 percent of the amount advocated by mental-health groups — $425 million in emergency funding — and has awarded $375 million to states and local organizations.

There are glimmers of hope, experts say, amid the gloomy outlook.

BY

C AROLYN Y . J OHNSON

P

Peter Foley/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The sudden push into telemedicine could make services more accessible in years to come. And the national mental-health crisis could spark reforms and movement toward better treatment.

And while almost everyone is experiencing increased stress, the effect for many will be transient — trouble sleeping, shorter fuses.

The difficulty is identifying and treating those who develop deeper, worrisome mental problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression.

“To control the virus, it’s all about testing, testing, testing.

And for the mental health problems ahead, it’s going to be all about screening, screening, screening,” said Gionfriddo of Mental Health America. n

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Health-care workers remove a body from a refrigerator truck serving as a temporary morgue in Brooklyn in April. A rise in mental health problems could strain already overwhelmed hospitals.

harmaceutical giant Pfizer began testing multiple versions of an experimental coronavirus vaccine in healthy young people in the United States this past week, a first step toward establishing the safety, dosage and most promising candidate to take into larger trials that will test effectiveness.

In an unusual trial design that signals the pressing need to find a vaccine against covid-19, Pfizer is initially testing four versions of the vaccine, side by side. Typically, companies spend years on animal experiments and select one candidate to put into human testing, but the drugmaker decided to create a flexible trial that could rapidly sift out the best option.

“The pandemic came upon us, fast and furious, and we didn’t have a lot of time to do years of research,” said Kathrin Jansen, the head of vaccine research and development at Pfizer. “Because of the urgency and the crisis, we said, ‘What can we do to shorten the development time for a vaccine?’ ” Jansen said the goal is to have a vaccine ready for use in high-risk groups by the fall — an ambitious goal that echoes the timeline from a group at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. There are at least eight other vaccine candidates being tested in people worldwide, according to a tracker by the Milken Institute.

The vaccine is being developed with the German company BioNTech and uses a type of genetic material, called RNA, to teach a person’s immune system to defend against the coronavirus.

The trial, initially centered at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and New York University Grossman School of Medicine, administered the first five vaccinations to people Monday. Four out of five people in the study will receive experimental vaccinations, and one will receive a placebo.

“This is a whole new world of

doing these trials,” said Kathy Neuzil, the director of the Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

“We’ve done many of these [vaccine] trials, but here we’ve done it with covid precautions: screening everybody before they even come into the building, taking temperatures, masks, participants spread out in the room rather than everyone sitting together.”

The trial will start with healthy, young people between the ages of 18 and 55. But as safety is established in that population, it will expand to an older group of study participants — people up to age 85 — because of the high risk they face from covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Ultimately, researchers will enroll 90 people at each trial site, which will also include the University of Rochester Medical Center and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

That data will inform laterstage trials designed to test the effectiveness of the vaccine, which Jansen said could start this summer.

Michael Sikorski, 26, showed up at the clinic Monday knowing he was the fourth person in line to receive the vaccine in Maryland.

Sikorski, in training to be a physician and a scientist, wore a mask, underwent temperature checks and got a nasal swab to confirm he wasn’t infected with covid-19.

His motivations are both “personal and global,” said Sikorski, who happens to study the genomics of microbes that cause outbreaks.

“My parents are of the high-risk age, and my grandparents as well.

I would love, both as a medical student and as a researcher of microbiology, to play an active role in coming up with a vaccine that could help,” Sikorski said. “And I also understand the importance of safe vaccine trials, to make sure these products are tested in healthy people first and closely monitored and slowly scaled up.” n

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The coronavirus pandemic

Voices of the Pandemic

‘I’ve never been this angry’ AS TOLD TO

E LI S ASLOW

I

try to remember that I’m one of the lucky ones in all this. What do I have to complain about? I’m not dead. I’m not sick. I haven’t lost my job or gone broke. I’m bored and I’m lonely, and so what?

Who’s really going to care about my old-lady problems? Lately, when I see people talking about the elderly, it’s mostly about how many of us are dying off and how we’re forcing them to shut down the economy.

I tell myself I should be more positive. I should be grateful.

Sometimes I can make that last for an hour or two.

A day can drag on forever when you’re isolated all by yourself. I sleep as late as I can. I try not to look at the clock. I go on Facebook and read about all the ways this country is going to hell in a handbasket. I turn on the TV to hear a bit of talking.

It’s been almost seven weeks since I’ve spent time with a real, live person. I haven’t touched or really even looked at anyone, and it’s making me start to think recklessly. The other day I went to Walgreens to pick up my medications, and I sat in the parking lot and thought about going inside. I was wearing my mask and I had my inhaler. I wanted run a normal errand, look at the chocolates, maybe find my way into a conversation.

But I stayed in the car and went to the drive-through. I put on my gloves and handed my card to the clerk through a hole in the glass window. I took the medicines and gave a little wave.

If I get this virus, I’m afraid it would be the end of me. I’m 75.

I’ve got all I can handle already with my asthma, fibromyalgia and an autoimmune disorder.

The best way for me to survive is by sitting in my house for however many weeks or months it’s going to take. But how many computer games can you play before you start to lose it? How

photos by Jenn Ackerman for The Washington Post

Gloria Jackson, on being 75, alone and thought of as expendable many mysteries can you read? I realize time is supposed to be precious, especially since mine is short, but right now I’m trying every trick I know to waste time away.

Negative thoughts creep up like that. I start getting crabby.

It’s waves of anger and depression, and I beat myself up for it.

People have it a whole lot worse.

Obviously.

I’ve got two daughters out of town who call me and check in, but I don’t want to guilt them.

I’ve got a high school friend who dropped off groceries. I’ve got a dog and two cats that need to be cared for, which gives me something to do. I’ve got my own

manufactured home with flowers blooming all over the house.

A lot of people don’t realize there’s a big difference between a trailer park and a mobile home community. I’ve spent hours lately driving up and down every block of this neighborhood, looking at people’s yards, checking out whatever might be poking through the dirt. One morning I drove my dog to the river.

People were walking on the path, and I was worried about the droplets and all that. We sat in the car and cracked the windows and listened to the water.

It feels like everybody here is trying so hard to be cheerful, but

Gloria Jackson at home in Minnesota with her dog. She has health conditions that elevate the risk she faces from covid-19.

boy does it take an effort. The other day was supposed to be the beginning of baseball season, and I love baseball, and the anchor came onto the local news and said: “Let’s all try to look on the bright side! Let’s find a way to celebrate Opening Day even though nobody is playing.” He showed pictures of fans wearing their Minnesota Twins T-shirts, or rubbing hand sanitizer onto a baseball to play catch, and I thought: You know what I’d really like to do right now if I’m being honest? I’d like to find a bat and a ball and go break a few windows.

I apologize to God for feeling this way, but he made me how I

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The coronavirus pandemic am. I’m over this whole thing. I used to be an optimist, but I’m not anymore.

I’ve never been this angry, and it’s an ugly way to feel.

Maybe when you don’t get to see anybody for weeks, emotions get bottled up and have nowhere to go. I get sucked into Facebook, and I keep scrolling down from one thing to the next, yelling at my computer as the posts get more and more insane.

Mike Pence was just here in Minnesota, visiting patients at the Mayo Clinic, and he went against their policy and refused to wear a mask. It’s like: “Really? How arrogant can you be?”

Next it’s someone posting pictures of people crowded together like sardines at a beach in California. “You idiots. Do you care about anyone but yourself ?” Then it’s the president’s saying it might be a good idea to inject some kind of bleach or disinfectant. “No thank you, but you go right ahead if you want to poison yourself.” Then it’s a militia group taking over a state capitol. It’s doctors who have to wear garbage bags instead of gowns. It’s that we still don’t have enough tests. It’s how at least most of the deaths are people over 70 with preexisting conditions. “Oh, what a relief!

Who cares about them?” It’s some stockbroker or whatever saying the elderly are holding this country back from reopening, and maybe it’s their patriotic duty to be sacrificed for the sake of the economy. “Sorry to be an inconvenience to your financial portfolio. Sorry I’m still breathing.”

It enrages me. I spent my career working for the federal government at Veterans Affairs. I raised my kids by myself. I basically had to raise my ex-husbands. I marched and fought for women’s rights. I volunteered for political campaigns. I pay taxes and fly a flag outside my house because I’m a patriot, no matter how far America falls. But now in the eyes of some people, all I am to this country is a liability? I’m expendable? I’m holding us back?

Sometimes, before I know it, I’ve been writing comments on Facebook posts for hours: “To hell with you then.” “You idiot.”

“How dumb can you be?” “Mo-

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“I’ve gotten old enough that I just say whatever I think with no filter, but I don’t always like what comes out.

This isn’t how I used to be.”

ron.” “Racist.” “Selfish pig.” “Idiot.” “Idiot.”

Everyone knows me as a kind person. I used to wear a peace necklace. I’ve gotten old enough that I just say whatever I think with no filter, but I don’t always like what comes out. This isn’t how I used to be.

There’s a lot I don’t recognize about what’s happening now.

This country is so completely different from the one I came into. My uncle was at the Battle of the Bulge the day I was born.

I arrived right near the end of the war, and most of my life was American boom times. We were the leading country in everything when I was young. My dad left for a while to work as a chef on the Alaskan Highway, and he traveled through Canada so we could carve a road 2,000 miles over the Rockies in the dead of

winter. We did whatever we wanted just to show that we could. That’s how it felt. I graduated from high school and started working when I turned 18, and within about a year I was earning more than my parents. That’s how it went. It was up, up, up.

And what are we now? We’re mean. We’re selfish. We’re stubborn and sometimes even incompetent. That’s the face we’re showing to the world. It seems like some of these other countries almost feel sorry for us.

New Zealand and South Korea beat this virus back in a few weeks. We’ve gone from ten thousand deaths to thirty thousand to sixty-some, so I guess we’re still leading the world in that.

We can’t get out of our own way. Are we shutting down or

opening up? It’s the states against the feds. It’s conservatives against liberals. There’s no leadership and no solidarity, so everybody’s doing whatever they want and fighting only for themselves, which means everyone who’s vulnerable is losing big.

Minorities. Poor people. Sick people. Immigrants. Elderly.

We’re the ones who will die from this virus and the ones who will never recover. That’s the truth I’m learning about this country, even if I should have known it earlier.

I don’t like feeling this way.

Maybe somewhere in this we’ll see a great lightning strike of American ingenuity. I doubt it, but maybe. There’s no choice but to be hopeful. I’m staying alive and sitting in my house and waiting. Where else am I going to go? I’ll be here. n

Jackson keeps herself strictly isolated because she fears that she would not survive an encounter with the novel coronavirus.

But the isolation that is necessary to safeguard her health is draining her spirit.

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‘I gave up on being Superwoman’ Juggling jobs and child care is testing moms in unprecedented ways

BY ELLEN MCCARTHY, CAITLIN GIBSON, HELENA ANDREWS-DYER AND AMY JOYCE

illustration by Efi Chalikopoulou

M

any American mothers experienced a profound shift in their lives — well beyond the mere loss of their routines — when the country began to grapple with the novel coronavirus two months ago.

Even before school closures and stay-athome orders were implemented, balance could feel tenuous for single moms and women married to men, who have traditionally spent less time caring for their children.

In interviews, eight working mothers said they are looking for silver linings — a quick hug from a child before a conference call or the pride that comes with keeping a business afloat against tough odds.

But, as Mother’s Day approaches, most concede that thriving is out of reach. Surviving is enough.

Nina Makel Grocery shopper/gig worker and mother of four in Maryland

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ver the holidays, months before the virus took hold across the United States, Nina Makel installed cameras around her apartment so that when she was out working she’d be able to look in on her four kids.

Lately, she’s logging 60-hour weeks as a contract worker who shops for other people’s groceries via Amazon Fresh and Instacart.

“I found myself at the job more than being at home,” the 32year-old says. “It went crazy.”

She’s earning more money than she has during her two previous years doing gig work, but she also has to be away from her children — ages 4 to 12 — as they’ve adjusted to life without school.

Her network of cameras is proving essential. She can use her phone to watch the kids do schoolwork at the table, play video games in the living room and eat dinner in the kitchen. She speaks to her crew through the cameras, reminding them to clean up after themselves.

Makel’s husband, a Montgomery County bus driver, is home with pay, so he has taken the lead in helping the kids keep up with school and process all the changes in their lives. “He does one-on-one with them. With this going on, it’s a mental thing, too,” Makel says. “He’s sitting down, talking to them, seeing where their head is.”

These days, Makel is often gone by 7 a.m. and not home until after 7 or 8 at night. She has taught her kids how to vacuum, do dishes and take out the trash so she doesn’t come home to a mess.

But Makel still does the family’s laundry and wakes as early as 5 to

make the day’s meals in advance. She’s also the main contact for the kids’ teachers, which means she gets the notification if someone doesn’t hand in an assignment on time.

When she finally arrives home, she takes off and disinfects everything she has worn. Sometimes she’s exasperated by rude customers she encounters on the job, but she tries to leave that at the door, too. This way, for the few hours she’s home and awake, she can focus on being with her family.

“Because,” she explains, “They see less of me now.” — E.M. Tammy Duckworth U.S. senator from Illinois and mom of two

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t is 9 a.m. and time for Tammy Duckworth’s 5-year-old daughter to wake up for the day. It’s also time for Duckworth to call in to a briefing with the secretary of defense. So the senator takes the opportunity to multitask: She receives the secretary’s briefing while sitting on the edge of her daughter’s bed so she can rouse her little sleeping beauty.

It’s multitasking all the time now. Most days, it’s that way for working moms, quarantine or no quarantine. But for a lawmaker who’s trying to help lead the government during a public health crisis while also suddenly teaching preschool lessons, the tasks can feel especially disparate.

“My schedule in many ways is more demanding and more full now than it was before,” says the 52-year-old Democrat, who is quarantining in the Northern Virginia suburbs. “Because before, there was a real separation. I leave here, and then I go to work, and there’s a work schedule.”

Now it’s just people asking her for things nonstop. Staffers sending texts asking her to squeeze in one more virtual meeting, and daughters Maile, 2, and Abigail, 5, asking for snuggles, snacks and screen time.

Duckworth the senator is also the parent taking the lead in keeping up Abigail’s education. Her husband, Bryan Bowlsbey, works in cybersecurity and is in their basement wearing an earpiece, taking secure calls eight hours a day. But, Duckworth says, “I think most women end up doing the home-schooling.

We’re sort of like the ones who make sure the kids take their vitamins and get their meals.”

Sitting at her kitchen table and surrounded by stacks of papers, old Easter baskets and nursery school workbooks, Duckworth recalls having grand plans at the start of the quarantine. “I thought, ‘Okay, we’re going to do worksheets, and then we’re going to do science experiments or baking. She’ll learn measures and all of that. And then we’re going to do some art, and then we’ll go out and do earth science.’ ” Weeks later? “I’ve had to adjust my expectations,” says Duckworth, who wore a Zoom-ready leather jacket and pearls over a kid-stained T-shirt. “I’m lucky if I get her to do the worksheets.”

And she’s grappling with the guilt of what’s slipping. “I continue to feel very inadequate. Is she not going to be ready for kindergarten? Is that going to be my fault? All of those same selfdoubts that we all have.”

Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost her legs during combat in the Iraq War, has help and is grateful for it. In addition to her husband, Duckworth’s 79-year-old mother and an au pair are isolating with the family and help share the load. — E.M. Julie Farrell Pulmonary nurse and mother of three in New Jersey

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hen Julie Farrell graduated from nursing school in December, she clearly envisioned her family’s future: She would work a few night shifts each week, sleep during the day while her husband was at work and their

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The coronavirus pandemic children were at school, then spend time with her family in the evenings. The 34-year-old, who left a career in marketing to study nursing, would finally be doing the work she’d dreamed of since she was awed by the nurses who cared for her twin daughters after their birth four years ago.

Farrell’s first day as a pulmonary nurse at St. Barnabas Medical Center in New Jersey was March 2, when the confirmed number of coronavirus cases in the United States topped 100. During her second week on the job, covid-19 was declared a global pandemic, and the routine she had once imagined came undone: Farrell’s husband, a scientist at a pharmaceutical company, began working from home.

Schools closed, and suddenly the couple were juggling work with caring for their 5-year-old son and the twins.

“When I get home, my kids have just woken up, and they’re ready for the day,” Farrell says, “but I’m not exactly ready for their day.” Before she greets her family, she heads to the basement, where she puts her scrubs, hair covering and shoes into the washing machine, then takes a shower. She stays awake long enough to help the kids with breakfast and set up her son with his online class materials before she goes to bed at 10 or 11 a.m.

From the beginning, Farrell wore protective gear at work, followed safety protocols, stayed home when she wasn’t working — but in late March, she experienced a mild headache, which quickly grew severe, accompanied by a lowgrade fever. Three days later, the symptoms vanished, Farrell says, and though she was tested for the coronavirus, she felt fully recovered by the time she learned that her results were positive.

She was cleared to return to work in early April and now spends three nights a week at the hospital, from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m., tending to covid-19 patients.

Farrell feels lucky; her brush with the virus was minor, and her husband has been a dedicated partner and parent. (“He really hasn’t had a break at all,” she says.) But the luckiest feeling of all, she says, is that she is working as a nurse at this moment in history.

“So many nurses go almost their entire careers and never see anything like this, and I’m seeing it on Week 2,” she says. “I feel like I’m definitely helping people, so every day has felt like, ‘Wow, I’m actually doing what I set out to do.’ ” — C.G. Ashley Chea Social media influencer and mom of three, sheltering in the Midwest

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ost days, Ashley Chea feels her husband’s job is more important than hers, but this wasn’t one of those days.

Chea, a 35-year-old “momfluencer” with 48,000 Instagram followers, earns her income via social media partnerships. Her husband has the regular corporate gig.

She stays home with the couple’s three daughters and fits her work in where she can. His job is stable, predictable.

Hers is less so.

But on this day, her job took precedence. A popular car seat company had hired her to shoot what amounted to a minicommercial starring her two toddlers. Pre-quarantine, it wouldn’t have been a thing, but imagine being a 3-year-old trapped in the house for days getting all dressed up to go nowhere.

“How do you explain to a 3-year-old I’m doing this for

FAMILY PHOTOS

content? ‘You’re going in and out until I get this shot,’ ” says Chea, who has been earning money as a social media influencer for six years. It took two naps and 14 tries. She had to edit the video and submit it for review. She almost felt bad about unloading the kids on her husband. Almost.

By the look of things on her Instagram feed, Chea is winning the quarantine game. Back in February, she and her entire brood decided to relocate temporarily from Los Angeles to their hometown of Columbus, Ohio, to ride out the pandemic with Chea’s mom.

So there Chea is on Instagram painting the back steps of her mother’s home a trendy black while her 11-year-old daughter helps. Scroll down, and there are Chea’s two youngest (the 3year-old and one almost 2) smiling in a Radio Flyer wagon on a near cloudless afternoon. Is she one of those moms pushing sponsored content, beautiful children in pristine clothes and rainbow-colored daily home-schooling schedules?

“There are no days of the week anymore. It’s yesterday, today and tomorrow. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve given them their iPads because I don’t care. For me, it’s about their mental health,” explains Chea. She has watched “Frozen” four times in one day. “I’m not about to argue with a 3-year-old.”

And about that perfect Radio Flyer day posted online? The next day, it snowed. The kids were stuck inside. Chea was on a tight deadline for a revision of a script she’s writing, her husband had his own work stuff, her oldest needed help with math, her mother had a headache, and the baby had a poopfilled diaper. Chea ended up in a closet in tears.

“That’s literally how it is every other day,” she says. — H.A.D. Wenlei Zhang Business manager and mom of two in the San Francisco Bay area

I

gave up on being Superwoman a long time ago. I don’t do everything.

It took a pandemic to show Wenlei Zhang how busy her family has been. Maybe too busy.

She’s a business manager for a large Silicon Valley firm. Her husband also works in the tech industry. They’re raising two high-achieving boys — Oliver in 11th grade and Aiden in eighth.

“We were usually out of the house at 8 sharp,” she says. “And then I sit in traffic for 45 minutes to get to work.”

Between the boys’ schoolwork and volunteer programs and the parents’ full-time jobs, it seemed like they didn’t see each other all that much. So when everything came to a halt, Zhang says, it “felt like a relief. Everything was so relaxed. It’s like we’re in this moment where we’re dancing and all of a sudden, the music stopped.”

At first, Zhang and her husband left their children to figure it out. The boys slept in, fed themselves breakfast and then did whatever it is teens do, while the parents worked from home.

Distance learning hadn’t started yet, and Zhang realized she had no idea what her boys were doing with their days, how long they were playing video games, how much time they were wasting.

Her husband decided, she says, that he needed to build in more time with the boys “because we were all so busy and apart, and now all of a sudden, we’re here.” So every afternoon from 4 to 5, her husband and the boys go running.

And Zhang saw an opportunity to give the boys

From top: Nina Makel with her daughters, Toni Lynn, 12 and Jakayla, 4; Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) at home with her children Abigail, 5, and Maile, 2; Julie Farrell at home with her children; Ashley Chea’s daughters AmirahLee, 11, and AzarahLee, 3, read together.

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The coronavirus pandemic responsibility beyond their household chores.

“I gave up on being Superwoman a long time ago. I don’t do everything. I make sure that in my household, everyone is equally busy,” she says. “I have my kids define their own structure. If I don’t see that in place, [I help them] find something meaningful to get going.”

So when parents with younger children at home had asked her whether Oliver could help teach their little ones, she sat him down and asked him what he thought his “social responsibility in all of this” was. Both of her boys volunteer with Silicon Valley Youth, an organization in which teens tutor their peers. After she told Oliver he needed to “do something,” he and other teens in the program created eight shelter-inplace classes. There, they’ve talked about the virus, the mask debate and even the issues related to President Trump saying “Chinese virus.”

Wenlei says she told her sons about an Asian American woman in her neighborhood who was yelled at when she was in line at the grocery store, accused of bringing the virus to the United States and told by a cashier to leave. The boys didn’t dwell on it, she says, but she knows it’s on their minds. — A.J. Ayala Donchin Cafe and catering company owner and mother of one, decamped from New York to the Tampa Bay area

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n March 1, Ayala Donchin, 50, celebrated her daughter Brooklyn’s fifth birthday with a huge “superhero princess” bash that she cooked up for 100 guests. A few days later, the catering company she spent a decade building was “gone, it was just gone.”

Parents at her daughter’s private school started escaping to second homes; her independent 84-year-old mother was still going to Pilates; and every email Donchin opened was another client cancellation.

“It was like trying to put a Band-Aid on a geyser,” she says.

The questions, the logistics, the panic and the problems wouldn’t let up.

“In this situation, literally nobody knows what … they’re doing. There’s no one to tell you, ‘Yes, this is the right way,’ ” says Donchin, who recently learned that her business, Evelyn’s Kitchen, didn’t make the cut for the first round of Cares Act funding.

So why is everyone looking to her like she’s supposed be the all-knowing wizard? Her employees, her child and her daughter’s father in New York have all been looking for direction.

For a while, the questions were endless. Should she head down to Florida temporarily to be with her mom? Stay in Manhattan and pivot Evelyn’s Kitchen somehow? Leave and close for good?

“I made the best decision for my family to be here,” Donchin says from a quiet room in her mother’s home. A place where Brooklyn can swim in a pool or ride a bike while Donchin runs the business with the help of Brooklyn’s father, who is handling day-to-day operations at the restaurant.

Still, the move wasn’t without its bumps. The day of the reopening of Evelyn’s Kitchen — which amid the pandemic had shifted to a business model of providing large catered meals for first responders — was the day Donchin, who described herself as a “let’s-get-through-it person,” cried. All that pent-up pressure finally found a release. — H.A.D.

KLMNO Weekly

Elizabeth snarey Nonprofit program director and mother of one in Georgia

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lizabeth Snarey has often thought about the passage of time, ever since her son, Michael, was born 11 years ago with a rare genetic disorder called Hunter syndrome and doctors said he was not likely to survive beyond 10. But time has taken on new meaning as the pandemic has reshaped their lives.

The 32-year-old single mom in Atlanta now works from home while caring for Michael, who was abruptly separated from his special-education program and his speech and occupationoal therapists.

Snarey was already accustomed to being Michael’s sole support, always on duty, a mother who has spent every cold and flu season worrying about what might happen if her medically fragile child got sick.

Now they’re both adjusting to the absence of their previous routines. She’s still working as director of programs and family support at the Arc Georgia, an organization that serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Michael has access to some online learning resources, but “it’s really difficult to deliver that to a child who can’t really navigate systems like that anyway,” Snarey says.

These days, Snarey works at the dining room table with Michael playing nearby so she can keep an eye on him when she joins conference calls. As a professional, she is working with other advocates to help people with disabilities navigate the pandemic. As a mom, she is determined to protect her severely immunocompromised son, mostly keeping him inside, the two of them alone except for visits from a nurse who delivers a weekly infusion to help combat his disease.

“Michael doesn’t really understand what’s going on, but he is not enjoying the isolation,” Snarey says. “He loves living life alongside others, and not being able to do that has definitely been tough.” — C.G.

Maggie Smith Poet and mother of two in Ohio

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eing at home right now while working and trying to educate and care for our children is not “working from home,” says poet Maggie Smith, 43. Trust her. She works from home. This is not that.

“This is sheltering during a global pandemic and trying to get work done,” she says. “In many cases, I need to remind myself of that.”

And so she tries to focus on the essentials and be more forgiving of herself than usual, as a single mother of Violet, 11, and Rhett, 7. When things aren’t working? They take a break.

Maybe they have an ’80s dance party or a picnic on the carpet.

This strange time has provided Smith, who lives in Bexley, Ohio, a potentially life-altering way of being.

“It’s actually made me a little more forgiving for myself and … forgiving of the time I need,” she says. “We feel a lot of guilt as working mothers, especially if we’re not attending to their needs every second of every day. That they’re going to feel ignored or think we care about our work more than them. And I think them watching me navigate this with them, I hope and trust that they know they’re the top priority. But I also can see that they get it. They’re like, ‘Go do your thing. We’re fine.’ Like, we’re all giving ourselves space to not be perfect and just do the best we can.” — A.J. n

From top: Wenlei Zhang's sons, Oliver and Aiden, work in the garden that the family started during the shelter-inplace orders; Ayala Donchin, center, with her daughter, Brooklyn, and mother, Rina; Elizabeth Snarey’s son, Michael, relaxes on her bed; Maggie Smith’s children, Violet and Rhett, sit on the couch with their dog.

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The coronavirus pandemic

Masks to make the world gasp BY

R OBIN G IVHAN

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ashion always finds a way.

Human beings are undaunted in their search for ways to stand out, to communicate, to thrive in a treacherous environment. And so the face mask — once purely functional, once perceived as an exotic accessory — has evolved at breakneck speed into something more.

It’s more essential because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that Americans wear a mask when interacting with others. It’s more aesthetically pleasing. It’s also a more complicated cultural proposition. And, of course, the face mask is political because both the president and the vice president have refused to wear one on highly public occasions and because some protesters have insinuated that masks are un-American.

As the country moves toward reopening, masks are assuredly part of our future. And in some ways, their evolution is the perfect encapsulation of how much life has changed in a blink of an eye — and how challenging, both intellectually and emotionally, it will be for us to go forward.

“The question about face masks is how will they morally change us? To some extent the answer depends on our motivation for wearing them,” says Liz Bucar, a professor of religion at Northeastern University. “If you are wearing a mask to protect yourself from others, you are forming a habit of fear. Every time you put a mask on, every time you see someone else wearing one, you will reinforce this fear.

“But if you are wearing the mask to protect others, wearing it will create a feeling of connection to those in your community,” she says. “You’ll see others wearing masks as a sartorial sign that they are willing to sacrifice some freedom and comfort for the common good.”

In the beginning, which is to say in March, our experts said that healthy civilians didn’t need to wear face masks. A nonmedical mask was superfluous because it

Washington Post illustration; iStock

The gear is fast becoming a way to express ourselves — and, for some, to show solidarity could not protect the wearer from the microscopic droplets on which the virus traveled. The only purpose was to prevent the wearer from coughing and sneezing the infection on others — and if one was displaying those sorts of symptoms, you really shouldn’t be out in the world.

In Paris, crowded international fashion shows were still unfurling as scheduled. A few design houses offered guests disposable masks — presented on a tasteful tray held by a handsome young usher at the entrance, the way a waiter might offer a glass of champagne. Unlike with bubbly, there were few takers. Those who did slip on a mask were rarely American and most often from Asia, where wearing a mask isn’t a matter of fear or paranoia, but consideration for others.

Yet even in Paris, the center of the fashion universe, the masks were basic. White. Black. (Surely you didn’t think they’d be as awful as institutional blue?) Disposable.

By early April, a good Samari-

tan army of fashion industry workers was stitching up masks for first responders. They too were straightforward, generic. It didn’t matter who was creating the masks — whether it was Louis Vuitton reinventing its leathergoods factories or independent entrepreneurs in New York or Los Angeles opening up their small ateliers. There were no logos.

Function was the only consideration.

Designer Christian Siriano was using a pattern issued by the New York governor’s office, and Fashion Girls for Humanity — a nonprofit organization founded in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake in Japan — offered downloadable patterns and construction information gathered from medical professionals.

Soon, however, function met form. That same month, the CDC changed course and advised everyone to wear a mask in public.

The fashion industry fully committed to the effort. If a shopper goes to Etsy, there are — at last

count — 250 pages of colorful, patterned nonmedical masks to click through. Neighborhood blogs are filled with offers from home seamst willing to stitch up distinctive masks for locals.

There are masks for every taste and budget. Some are printed with Edvard Munch-like openmouthed screams. Goth masks mimic skeletal jaws. Disney is offering a preorder on four-packs of masks featuring its signature characters. High-end versions are constructed from fine Italian fabrics that really should be handwashed rather than thrown into the Maytag. Others are covered in sequins. Some masks look to be so dense that they’d impede breathing; nonetheless, they’re stunning.

Almost all of them come with a promise of a charitable donation or a reassurance that no one is profiting . . . too much.

That’s the unwritten rule, so far.

Ronald van der Kemp unveiled one-of-a-kind masks in Amsterdam to benefit refugees. Some of them were more like fantastical, all-encompassing millinery than mere masks, as they were resplendent with gold chains, pearl-like beads and flowers. A designer is allowed to recoup expenses — materials and labor.

But there was a social media firestorm when images showed masks from Off-White, the coveted men’s streetstyle brand, selling online for as high as $1,205.

But fashion pricing has never been based on actual value. It’s calculated based on perceived value, which is driven by desire, status and rarity. Nonmedical masks have worth because of their function. We’re not yearning for them.

As a culture, we are just edging our way out of denial about what the near future holds and mincing our way to acceptance. And perhaps, the more stylish the masks become, the more willing people will be to put them on.

“I see people wearing masks for a while,” predicts New York designer Eugenia Kim. And if people have to wear them, if they have to have this piece of cloth front and center on their face, why not make

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The coronavirus pandemic the best of the situation? “They’re obviously functional, but I think they can be uplifting.”

She compares these fashion masks to T-shirts. Useful and common, yet endlessly variable. And enduring.

Kim is a milliner. The addition of masks to her collection took less than a week from concept to ecommerce. And after about a week selling online, she’s moved about 1,000 masks, with the most favored version a sequined one for $20.

“It used to be that we really only saw tourists wearing them,” Kim says, referring to visitors from Asia. “Now, we are those people.”

The modern surgical mask — essentially multiple layers of gauze — dates to the late 1800s.

For generations, masks have been common on streets in Japan and China, worn during cold and flu season or as protection from pollution and allergens, and gaining ground during the SARS outbreak.

Street-influenced menswear incorporated face masks into its vocabulary more than a decade ago. In the spring 2002 Raf Simons collection, presented not long after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, models stalked the darkened runway wearing face coverings that left little but their eyes visible. The masks referred to rebellion, to defying the establishment.

The early fashion masks were a way to stand apart from a logodriven, flashy society. They used anonymity as style statement.

Just after the presidential inauguration in 2017, menswear designers in New York incorporated face masks into their collections as part of a uniform of liberal protest of the Trump administration and its targeting of immigrants, minorities, women and the LGBTQ community. More recently, face masks have symbolized the dangers of climate change. Anti-capitalists have adopted Guy Fawkes masks and antifa activists hide behind gas masks and bandannas.

Masks, part of the greater universe of face coverings, stir up long-held stereotypes that frame the person behind the mask as dangerous or suspicious, rather than caring or considerate. We are leery of what we cannot see.

The enduring image of bandits shapes that perception. But so do

Islamophobia and racism.

Some black men have expressed their fear of being mistaken for an assailant if they enter a store wearing a mask, particularly a homemade one. They’d rather risk covid-19 than an unpredictable encounter with police. And Asian Americans have faced verbal and physical abuse from bigots who blame them for a virus that first appeared in Wuhan, China.

“We’ve policed face coverings,” says Bucar, the religion professor, who’s the author of “Pious Fashion: How Muslim Women Dress.”

“It ‘others’ us to wear one.” But they are not likely to be discarded soon. “We’ve started thinking about how we’ll deal with these masks on campus,” Bucar says.

“Will my kid use one in seventh grade? Will police officers?”

Already masks are standard attire for grocery clerks and customers, delivery folks, Uber drivers, pharmacists and baristas. The House of Representatives was gaveled in to session by maskwearing congressmen. Waiters take orders behind them in restaurants.

It’s not a leap to envision visitors strolling through museums wearing masks, music lovers attending an outdoor concert wearing them or customers browsing a clothing shop wearing masks while simultaneously shopping for new ones.

If masks become common, they can serve as a personal reminder of how one should behave in public. That’s the power of a particular form of attire. It connects us. It’s an expression of solidarity.

Fashion finds a way — without advertising, influencers or the red carpet. Tiny design houses and modestly sized brands are all producing masks that are more pleasing to the eye. Going out in one of those blue disposable masks is the stylistic — and psychological — equivalent of wearing a hospital gown in public. The new generation of masks look intentional.

“If you have to wear a mask every single day, you probably need 14 in a week. If I go out once and then I go out again, do I wear the same mask? No, ideally you wear a different one,” says designer Kiki Pedro-Hall. “Every company at the retail level is making masks — any cotton T-shirt company is making masks. You see it when you go on Instagram.

Whole businesses are being

above: Ports 1961; below: Marijke Aerden

Above: The fashion brand Ports 1961 created a character called Phi to encourage mask wearing.

Left: Dutch designer Ronald van der Kemp has crafted one-of-akind masks to benefit refugees.

KLMNO Weekly

launched out of masks.”

In Brookyn, Pedro-Hall had been part of an initiative making masks for hospitals. “I was feeling so sad,” she says. “Maybe I’m a control freak. This was me feeling like I’m doing something.”

She soon shifted her energies to sewing masks that she could sell — raising money for people in need, such as families who couldn’t afford funerals for their loved ones.

Pedro-Hall, who has made stage costumes for hip-hop performers, has a keen sense for what is cool and what is hot. She began recycling dust covers — the protective fabric bags that come with luxury handbags and shoes — into masks.

She suspected that “all the sneakerheads would totally love this stuff.” There was built-in exclusivity, as some design houses create unique dust covers for particular products. The covers are emblazoned with the brand’s name — Gucci, Prada, Balenciaga, Chanel — and sell for $65 to $150.

Pedro-Hall delivered 25 of them online at Ki Collection in midApril. They sold in 15 minutes. The new collection includes 40 masks, as well as matching bags to store them in. The dust cover masks have their own dust cover.

Masks arrived in our lives like costuming from a terrifying science fiction film. Those sterile covers churned up fear and disgust, as well as a kind of stubborn individualism that could prove disastrous. Violence has even erupted when businesses have required them of customers.

But the scale is weighted toward mask-wearing. Neighbors deliver online tirades against those who don’t wear them.

Health experts continue to advocate for masks. And even Vice President Pence admitted that his not wearing one during his April visit to the Mayo Clinic, which requires them of anyone on site, was wrong.

Masks are the “great equalizer,” Kim says. They’re a visual acknowledgment of a communal purpose. The most powerful accept their duty to take precautions to protect the weak. And the least among us have agency, too.

It’s no small thing that fashion has gotten hold of masks. The industry has taken liberty in smoothing their edges and heightening their flavor. We can stand in solidarity with our neighbors. But we can remain individuals, too. n

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The coronavirus pandemic

Competing views on Biden’s VP pick

BY M ATT V ISER, A NNIE L INSKEY AND V ANESSA W ILLIAMS

J

oe Biden is under escalating pressure from competing branches of his party as he ponders the most consequential decision of his presidential candidacy: a running mate.

Black Democrats have joined in a concerted effort to urge him to pick a black woman as his vicepresidential nominee. Now some liberal groups and activists, who have long had an antagonistic relationship with the presumptive nominee, are pressing Biden to select a liberal woman.

Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has been extraordinarily blunt in saying she would accept the job. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) has taken the opposite tack, remaining low-key while others advocate for her.

Some liberals are backing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who ranks far above others on the left as a potential running mate. But rancor from the primaries has led to schisms on the left: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the final competitor to cede to Biden and the liberal figure best positioned to push for concessions, has declined to support Warren despite their ideological alliance, according to three people familiar with his conversations with Biden, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount the private discussions.

The scramble comes at a potentially awkward moment. Biden pledged nearly two months ago to pick a woman as his running mate, elevating the demographic that powered the party’s gains in the 2018 midterm elections by pushing back against President Trump.

Yet now, as Biden comes closer to a decision, he faces accusations that he sexually assaulted a Senate aide who worked for him in the early 1990s.

Biden has denied the charges, but some potential running mates have been repeatedly asked to respond, presenting them with an awkward test of loyalty.

Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post

Black Democrats, liberal groups and others say their choice is best Biden’s decision could foretell which direction he believes is most important for the party he now leads and which parts of the party he thinks must be mobilized to win the White House.

Democrats have been split since 2016 over whether energizing black voters or winning over some white working-class voters in the industrial Midwest represents the best shot for the party in November. Hillary Clinton’s defeat four years ago was narrow enough that either option could explain it, giving Democrats little certainty as they try to wrestle the presidency from Trump.

Biden is believed to be considering as many as a dozen candidates, but much of the focus has centered on a handful of his for-

mer primary rivals, each of whom would fulfill different aims for the party: Warren, a liberal icon; Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), a Midwestern moderate; and Harris, who would be the first black female nominee.

“He’s in a quandary,” said Ed Rendell, a former governor of Pennsylvania who is in regular contact with Biden’s campaign.

“Some days I wake up and I say, ‘We’ve got to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan — and Klobuchar is a great candidate.’

“Then I think black voters feel strongly that it should be a black woman, so I think Kamala,” he added. “Then some days I’m looking at the Internet and Bernie bros are bashing Biden, and I think: ‘Oh my god. We better run Elizabeth.’ ”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer applauds as Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) hugs former vice president Joe Biden on March 9.

Both women have been mentioned as possible running mates.

Public polling offers little guidance. A new CBS News-YouGov poll found Warren to be the top pick among registered Democrats, at 36 percent to 19 percent for Harris. But asked whether a liberal or a moderate running mate would make victory over Trump easier, 31 percent said a liberal would make Biden’s election easier; 42 percent felt that way about a moderate nominee.

In that same poll, there also was no solid endorsement of a nonwhite candidate, with 23 percent favoring a nonwhite pick, compared with 74 percent who said race did not matter to them.

Biden has often talked about wanting a running mate who is “simpatico” with him and who could develop the kind of friend-

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The coronavirus pandemic ship and trust that he had with President Barack Obama. He has also spoken openly about seeing himself as a “bridge” to a new generation of political leaders, and he could use the pick to ease voters’ questions about his age. Biden, now 77, would be the oldest president in American history.

Warren, at 70, would not represent a generational choice. But the liberal groups making a push for her argue that she would excite the ascendant left wing of the party that never fully embraced Clinton in 2016.

The board of Our Revolution, a political nonprofit launched by Sanders and top allies from his 2016 campaign, held a virtual meeting last Sunday to discuss whether the vice-presidential pick might help unite the party. The group had just completed a survey of its members that it said showed 62 percent favoring Warren as Biden’s running mate and 22 percent wanting Abrams. Harris, Klobuchar and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, all more moderate, didn’t break 10 percent.

“The overwhelming majority of the board is enthusiastic about Warren,” said Larry Cohen, who leads Our Revolution. He said the member survey “established that the number one way to inspire our people to defeat Trump [is] to have a vice president who will stand up to corporate America and corporate greed, and stand for Medicare-for-all and massive investment on the environmental crisis.”

Biden’s campaign has reached out to the Working Families Party, which backed Warren in the primary contest, though the group’s leaders haven’t yet connected.

“We believe the vice president should be someone who can excite young voters and progressives,” said Maurice Mitchell, the group’s national director. “Polling shows strong support among Democrats and progressives for Elizabeth Warren, which matches enthusiasm we’ve seen from our members.”

But Sanders has not been part of the lobbying effort.

“Senator Sanders and his team are not advising the Biden campaign’s vice-presidential selection process in any way, shape or form,” said Sanders spokesman Mike Casca, who said the senator’s priority remains the party platform.

Liberal groups were dismayed

Mike Blake/Reuters

that Biden’s vice-presidential vetting panel did not include names close to their movement. Among those serving on it are Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.); Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti; former senator Christopher J. Dodd (DConn.), a longtime Biden friend; and former Biden aide Cynthia Hogan.

“It raises serious questions as to how seriously the Biden campaign is considering progressive candidates,” said Neil Sroka, the communications director for Democracy for America, a liberal organization that backed Sanders in the primaries.

Black interests, by contrast, have been incorporated into the campaign. Rochester, a link between Biden’s campaign and the Congressional Black Caucus, led a recent campaign call with caucus members that included discussion about black women from various parts of the country whom members believed should considered on the ticket, according to one person familiar with the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private call.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said he urged Biden during a phone conversation last month to pick a black woman as his running mate.

“I told him I would prefer a black woman but that I’m not making an ultimatum,” he said. “I trust he’ll make the right judgment.”

“He said, ‘I hear ya, Al.’ ”

Sharpton said mobilizing black voters should be the central goal of the campaign.

“Hillary Clinton lost Michigan by 12,000 votes. Three churches I know of could have given that in Detroit,” Sharpton said. “It could be a margin of victory if he has the right candidate. That doesn’t mean any black running mate could energize. He’s got to have the right candidate.”

Rep. James E. Clyburn (D), whose endorsement in South Carolina was one of the most important moments of Biden’s campaign, has been outspoken in his views and has pointed to a deep bench of black women who would be qualified.

“I and several others have expressed our feeling that it would be great for him to select a black woman,” he said in an interview.

“But that is not a must. That is just what I think would be a great thing to do.”

“The vice president must be informed by his vetting and polling,” he added. “And he must be guided by his head and his heart.”

Minyon Moore, a veteran Democratic activist, said black women not only have consistently shown up in high numbers at the polls but also have been the foot soldiers in campaigns to elect white men and women to higher office.

“That’s what we do. We’ve always fought for the collective,” she said. “We’re fighting to uplift a community of women that are rarely seen.”

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and former vice president Joe Biden talk onstage before the sixth Democratic presidential debate in December. Liberal groups say Biden should choose Warren as a running mate because she would galvanize the left wing of the party.

KLMNO Weekly

Moore was among a group of black female organizers who recently released an open letter to Biden, declaring that “black women are the key to Democratic victory in 2020” and urging him to select a black woman as his running mate.

No one has campaigned as aggressively and openly as Abrams, who after her failed race for governor in 2018 has raised her national profile as an advocate for voting rights.

“I would be an excellent running mate,” she told Elle magazine.

“As a young black girl growing up in Mississippi, I learned that if I didn’t speak up for myself, no one else would,” she said recently on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “My mission is to say out loud, if I’m asked the question, ‘Yes, I would be willing to serve.’ ” Abrams’s open campaigning has caused some eyerolls, but several around Biden say it has not necessarily damaged her chances. One aide noted, with a hint of admiration, that Abrams managed to work into a recent interview that she is a native of Wisconsin, a crucial battleground state.

“I would hope she thinks she makes a good running mate,” said Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.), a co-chairman of the Biden campaign. “She’s certainly working hard. She ran a great gubernatorial campaign; she’s doing a lot in the grass-roots community. Her touting her desire or qualifications makes sense.”

He said there were a number of qualified black women — mentioning Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio), Harris and Abrams — but said the process would take a range of considerations into account.

“The most important thing is for the VP to have a synergy with the person,” Richmond said. “And to our ability to win. At the end of the day for Democrats, they want a ticket that can win. You can’t govern if you can’t win.”

Fudge said Biden’s choice “should be a black woman, no question about it.”

“We need to say to black women, who have been the most loyal, the most reliable in the party: It is your time.”

Asked if she would consider the role, she said: “Certainly I have been a public servant throughout my adult life in a variety of capacities. I’d be honored to serve in that one as well.” n

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