Trump, Zoom, and masks: How national leadership has reshuffled and other viral thoughts
President Trump has essentially abdicated the presidency. Now we have a national leadership committee.
That committee is co-chaired by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s Coronavirus Response Coordinator. Several governors are also members of the committee – leaders who truthfully inform and inspire us to act as one people. Among them are New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and our own Gov. Jay Inslee.
Inslee has been quick to act, an insistent promoter of social distancing for people and businesses, and forthright in facing up to the dire threat COVID-19 poses. There have been flaws, most notably the prolonged difficulty defining which businesses are essential and which are not — a process that some are still questioning. But that’s a complicated task, and there’s no precedent to guide those decisions.
What Inslee and other leading governors have in common is their consistent reliance on the best advice of public health professionals and scientists. Inslee also is at the top of the list for being a calm, plainspoken communicator, and a justifiably feisty advocate for the federal help our state needs.
Closing the social distance online
Introverts are coping best through this social distancing regimen. But for those of us who feel starved for social life, the online world has a lot to offer right now. Locally, there’s a Facebook group called “Pandemic-Positive-Possibilities” that is full of kind and funny posts, along with photos of what people are seeing out their windows.
There also are Facetime, Skype, Zoom and other online platforms that allow us to meet, chat, and virtually dine together, clinking wine glasses on our laptop or tablet screens.
Zoom meetings may be here to stay
In the business world, Zoom meetings may outlast the pandemic, as people take note of the obvious benefits – no driving or flying to a meeting site – and some not-so-obvious benefits too.
One is that on Zoom, people can’t interrupt each other, because the platform’s audio goes haywire if more than one person talks at the same time. This virtually eliminates interruptions and requires people to take turns.
And when multiple people’s faces are on the screen at once, only the image of the person who is talking is large; the rest are quite small. Side-eye smirks, eye-rolls and body language expressions of disagreement become invisible. This directs more attention to listening to what the person speaking is saying.
A local leader reports that this makes working through an agenda amicable even when it involves difficult decisions. Maybe there is some subtle difference in the way we listen when our focus is 100 percent on the face of the speaker.
Today’s equivalent of planting victory gardens: making face masks
For weeks we’ve been told we didn’t need to wear masks, but that advice shifted last week.
No one wanted to tell us to wear them when the limited supply was needed by health care providers. Now we’re told we should all mask up – but with homemade masks. At the very least, it would keep our hands off our mouths and noses. And even simple cotton masks can provide some protection from those invisible enemy germs that are emitted even by people who are asymptomatic.
There also are people other than health care workers who ought to have masks: grocery clerks, home care workers, staff and guests at shelters, anyone whose job requires being closer than 6 feet to other people, and people of all ages with compromised immune systems.
Faith Addicott is now leading the South Salish Mighty Mask Makers, a Facebook group of people willing to sew, donate supplies, deliver, or offer administrative assistance to a growing local brigade of mask-makers. The Facebook page went up last Saturday, and by Thursday it had 197 members. Some haven’t sewn in years, and are digging sewing machines out of their garages. Others are looking for sewing machines.
They are making two basic models – one that’s several layers of cotton fabric, and another that has a pocket that users can fill with removable, heavier-duty filter material. That can come from many sources, including disassembling a furnace filter, or cutting up vacuum cleaner bags.
“Making masks is a way people can get past feeling helpless,” Addicott says. Given the continuing shortage of face masks, that’s an understatement. And there’s a GoFundMe page to support this work.
But are they fashionable?
Now that mask-wearing is recommended, we wondered how long it would be before we saw designer masks that sell for $200. Google informs us they’ve been around for a decade already. Even in Nigeria.