Scenes from Quarantine: 35 People Tell Us What it’s Like to Tell Jokes, Lose Someone, Go on a Date, Feed 400,000 (and More) During Covid-19

Todd: “When I lost my father in 2005, George said, ‘Hey, come up and stay with me.’ That’s exactly what I did. Our relationship was more a father-son relationship, but very casual at the same time. George was very funny, very witty. He basically aced through Harvard Law School. But he was really humble. He got an offer at one point to work for BET, and he just never thought twice about it. That definitely says a lot about his commitment to public service.”

Tony: “Being adopted himself, I think he always felt there was a purpose for him to give back. He always wanted to return that sense of service.”

Josephine: “My daughter talked to George on March 13. He was talking low, because he was at the [Mayor’s] Emergency Operations Center. She said, ‘Uncle G., is it true this virus is really bad?’ And he told her, ‘It’s going to get worse in the next two weeks.’ ”

Todd: “My wife and my two kids, we would always meet Uncle George for brunch. The last time we went was in February. Our next outing was supposed to be at Uncle Julio’s.

“On Friday, the 20th of March he texted me, and said that he wasn’t feeling well. He had a fever, and coughing. I remember him saying, ‘I have allergies. I’m pretty sure it’s allergies.’ The following day, he was feeling better. On Monday, he said he wasn’t feeling well again. Tuesday, he was starting to have those symptoms again. Wednesday, he texted me and asked if I could bring some essentials. I beelined it over there. Stopped at CVS, got the stuff, but I couldn’t find a thermometer. I dropped the groceries off and walked his dog. I went to a medical supply store, two other stores, Giant, Whole Foods. Couldn’t find a thermometer. Then he called me around 1:30 PM and said he was in the hospital.

“I spoke to him throughout the day, and it sounded like he was stable enough, because they were going to move him to the general ward. But Thursday morning, he was still in the ER. He really sounded like he had a long night—just really tired. Around noon, maybe 1, they moved him to the ICU. And I was surprised. I spoke to the doctor. That’s when they told me he tested positive for the coronavirus.

“I was deflated. I was in shock, actually. Because while that had always been a possibility, I didn’t think that was, in fact, the case. And even at that point, I was still hopeful. I didn’t think it was going to be, you know, a death sentence. I became less optimistic throughout the day, as the doctors were asking me for medical consent to perform this, do that. And then they told me that his kidneys failed. Friday morning, I called them around five. They basically said they’d done all they could do, and it really wasn’t looking good. We spoke again at six, and they said they didn’t expect it to be much longer. And then they called me at eight, and they said he didn’t make it.

“There wasn’t an opportunity to say goodbye. Because I don’t think they realized how severe it was, either. The last time I spoke with him, he’d sounded very frustrated—I don’t know. They essentially intubated him Thursday. So there wasn’t an opportunity. And his phone had died by then. So. . . .”

Josephine: “[My daughter], it really bothered her. Two weeks after from what he told her—‘It’s really going to get worse in the next two weeks’—two Fridays later, he died. That really devastated her. She said, ‘Momma, he told me two weeks. And he died two weeks after that conversation.’ ”

Tony: “For me, the last time I saw George was the 14th of March. I stopped by to see him one last time before I was heading to the airport, heading out that night. As I left, he said, ‘Tony, I’ll see you.’ But this time, this one time, he said, ‘Tony, I’ll see you. And I love you.’ That made me pause. George never says I love you. I shrugged my shoulders.”

Todd: “I’m still processing the loss. It happened so fast. We were literally just having a conversation last week. Talking about, what are we going to do for Easter?

“We are [planning a funeral]. It’s still up in the air. But likely won’t be immediate, just because of the guidelines that the funeral homes have to follow. You can do I guess a virtual memorial. I hope he will be remembered for his dedication to The District, his dedication to family, and for his overwhelming generosity. He is definitely going to be missed.”

“My father called me a couple days ago and told me that my uncle, Tommy, had died. And I just found out this morning that my grandmother, who also tested positive, had passed away as well. Here I am reporting on Covid-19, and then it really hits close to home. I did the story on the first patient in DC, who works at Christ Church in Georgetown. So many times as a reporter, you’re comforting people or trying to help them feel better with tragedies. And then when it strikes you, it’s an ironic feeling. And it hurts.

“For me, my work is very therapeutic. I have to focus on my news story at 11 PM, which helps with my grieving. It’s important for me to be out in the community and letting people know, ‘I understand how you feel.’ My wife is an epidemiologist, so she is constantly giving me tips and guidance on how to be safe. We’re constantly cleaning our microphones. Unfortunately I can’t give anyone a hug. But they hear in my voice that I understand what they’re dealing with, because I’m dealing with it first hand.

“Prayer has been a source of strength. For me, my faith plays a big role. And my photographer, Brooks Meriwether. We pray together. He helps me get through all of this. But it’s tough, man.”

“We’re making ourselves as present on every virtual platform as we can. Our prayer services meet at 7:30 AM and 6 PM year-round; those meetings are being held over Zoom to give people a rhythm to their days. There’s singing and it’s responsive, but we don’t mute anyone. From an aesthetic perspective, it’s not great. There’s a delay, and everyone’s off-key. No musician would approve. But it’s one of my favorite moments of the day. The melody’s not important. Combining our voices, that’s the religious task here.

“Shabbat is online. A member of the clergy gets on Facebook Live at noon every day and gives some grounding piece of Jewish text to help people make sense of this moment and what their role is. Our whole staff has been posting videos of them from their homes saying hi. Every single member over 80 has received a phone call. Our next round is to call everyone in their 70s. We have hundreds of people who have volunteered to reach out and form their own circles of care. When people hear, ‘I’m calling from Adas,’ they hear the whole community behind that singular voice.

“I think one of the things I’m looking forward to is the immense gratitude we’ll have for some of the things we took for granted before. Like I was watching a video from a few months ago in the synagogue, where we’re all putting our arms around each other. And that feels so radical now to imagine.

“I was nervous about my first Shabbat after we closed. I was leading alone from an empty sanctuary in an empty building. I felt like, there’s no way this is going to seem authentic or connected. But that didn’t happen. I felt like I could look around and think, Oh, the person who sits there, I bet they’re watching. I feel really lucky. It feels like an institution like a synagogue would be among the hardest to translate to this time, and I actually feel like it’s the total opposite. I feel like all the things that are important to us, they’re so in our bones that it was never about the venue that we did them in. It shocked me; you can get rid of the middleman of the building and still hold on to the things that are core to the community.”

“After 13 years of doing standup, it’s the weirdest thing I’ve been in. It’s just a part of me is not here right now. Others are doing home shows—basically like Zoom groups. I decided against it. Here’s the thing, I watched the late-night shows. The monologues without audiences. And I was like, this is cool, but it’s really just a rant. In stand up, an audience, they’re our canvas. You can still record for the future, because there will be one day when this is all lifted. And then we can laugh. But while it’s happening? What’s my way to make light of it?

“I’m home all day with my wife and kids. You tell jokes and they’re like, ‘No.’ My kid was like, ‘You do this?’ He was like, ‘You’re not that funny.’ ”

“Before this for regular deliveries someone would hand us the cash, and we’d hand them the painting and the gift, and we’d go our separate ways. For a no-contact delivery, the client leaves the money in their mailbox or with their doorman. In certain situations, we’ve gone directly to their door. Still contactless. I’m not sure if you remember them from back in the day, those little claw things? [Reacher/grabber tools popular among people picking up litter] Somebody actually fashioned a little doggy-door type of thing, and handed us their money with the claw and then took the painting and the bag. It was funny the lengths people would go to for social distancing.

“The average value of our orders went up by about $55, to $170. We would see people ordering on Monday and then ordering on Thursday or Friday. Normally Washingtonians prefer sativas [strains that are said to increase one’s productivity and focus] to indicas [which tend to seriously chill you out]. We saw an increase in the popularity of our indica strains.” (District Derp temporarily closed in late March to comply with shut-in orders.)

“I was at Logan Tavern having what was going to be my last meal in one of my restaurants for some time. I had a feeling it was—I actually indulged and ordered a fried chicken sandwich. I remember it because they forgot my chipotle mayonnaise, and I didn’t yell at the server and I left a $20 tip. As I was halfway through my sandwich, the Mayor came on and said we had to shut down. I had to lay off so many people in 48 hours. Just one group after another. By the time I got to the fifth restaurant, I was emotionally worn to the bone. They all understood. We gave them all instructions, emails, websites—in Spanish and English. We had a special meeting for our ESL employees to make sure they understood and a followup meeting if they needed computer help.

“Everyone that wanted it walked out with shopping bags full of food. I have no doubt we gave away at least $10,000 worth. Every bit of produce, all the cheese, anything that couldn’t be frozen, sour cream, milk. We put it out on tables, put out shopping bags, and they could take what they wanted. Even with the giveaways, we literally had to end up throwing some food away.“I took, if not all 50 of my managers aside separately, 48 of them. One actually came to the [EatWell DC] farm just the other day—I was trying to give away all the winter crops. That night, he sent me a picture of carrot soup that he had made. It was the shittiest day I’ve had, and I saw this picture of this carrot soup. It just brightened up my whole day honestly.

“Many of my employees have been with me between 10 and 20 years. Many. The host at Grillfish has been there since the day we opened. This is his 24th year with me. All of my directors have been with me on average 11 years. Almost all of my chefs and sous chefs have all been with me like a decade. I was the first one to get laid off. I laid myself off. My restaurants are locked, alarms on, everything’s shut down, dark, gas off, water off. My sole goal is to preserve capital so there are jobs for all of the 150 people who worked for me.

“I’ve owned and operated restaurants since January of 1991. I’ve eaten my meals six and seven nights a week in my own restaurants mostly my entire adult life. I’m 60 years old. I’ve been cooking some leftover food from the restaurant, the food my father used to make us when we were kids. I made American chop-suey the other night. I had never walked the supermarket before. I would only go to the produce and eggs and some cheese. Breakfast stuff, it’s all I ever bought. Now I’m walking up and down the center aisles and the frozen aisles. We bought frozen tater tots—they were truly disgusting.”

“The last days of February I was looking at the international news and American leadership, and I realized that this was coming. I told myself, Set aside the unthinkable and start looking at the facts. I created a ‘Pre-Covid’ inbox with all of my to-dos and moved it off my main screen. I put myself in the mindset that all that stuff that used to be important—new plate ware, menu items—wasn’t. I set myself into a battle footing that would let us handle things in a much quicker way. On March 16, we let 1,100 people go and cut salaries by 75 percent for those who remained [80 people]. It was one of the worst days of my career. I’m wary of absolutes, and saving ‘the worst day,’ because so far, it’s about fear and economics. But when it becomes death of loved ones…it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

“Pre-Covid, during Covid, and post-Covid, it’s still about leadership, and leading with a balance of head and heart. I prepared for that announcement with my head: What’s the math? Then I shifted to my heart: What can we provide for those losing their jobs? Then you put those two things together. Between seven restaurants, I went to some, and my business partner Mike [Vucurevich] went to others, and we notified all of our employees by every channel, including email, text, and snail mail. I was just sick to my stomach. It makes me feel sick thinking about now. You’re saying to people, You’ve lost your job. Albeit temporarily.

“It became clear to us this wasn’t short term. Restaurant to-go food at our prices isn’t a daily sustenance strategy. We’ve lost 90 percent of our revenue. We need to become a grocery. We’re planning a full market business because we have our own bakery and big kitchens where we already make our own pasta, meats, desserts. We want to be part of the ‘see you tomorrow’ subset. Now we’ve added back 12 jobs so far. I went to check on one of our bartenders who we rehired. We’re a pretty squishy, emotional group. The hug would be the normal thing. She looked at me, and she said, Thank you so much for bringing me back. I said, Thank you for coming back. We don’t really have other words for this. If we can do it for one person, we can do it again, and again, and again. I just have to repeat that a thousand times.” (By mid-April, Simons had hired back more than 150 people.)

“All of our animals’ food and supplies are secured. Our team is always thinking of a buffer of a few months. We have personal protective equipment, masks and things, that we think are sufficient to get us through the summer. We’re trying to keep people healthy on the job because not all of our positions are fungible. It takes a year to certify an elephant keeper, for example.

“During the last government shutdown, we noticed that the elephants and some of the great apes were seeking a little bit more TLC from their caretakers. So we know some of the animals enjoy having more people there. Fortunately, with most of the animals, we’re not concerned about coronavirus transmission.

“But like so many organizations, the Zoo receives about two-thirds of its funding from the federal government. We supplement that with revenue we generate within the park. So we’re definitely worrying about what this means to us as time goes on. But you’re not a conservationist if you’re not an optimist. The world has been very tough on nature. People in our business—our vision is to save species. So we have a long view. And our long view is we have the power to make things better in the future. We have saved species, we are saving species, Covid-19 is not going to deter us from that.”

“Every bed has a ventilator in our unit. If we’re full, it’s spilling over into other units. We have had some graduate and go home, some deaths, and some that have been with us for more than 10 days. It’s really a wide variety of outcomes. When possible, we have allowed one family member to the bedside at end-of-life. Usually when the family has made a decision to stop treatment, and we have a definite end point.

“We thought it might be a little better not having [patients’] families actually on site, but now we’re dealing with multiple phone calls a day from families, which is appropriate, but stressful fielding all the calls. I’m not nervous so much about my health as I am my mental health. There’s a lot of unknowns with this disease. Every day we’re dealing with something different. It is physically and emotionally draining.

“Physically because being in the full infection prevention gear, you get hot. There are multiple layers on your face. And then most of us are also choosing to cover our hair. That’s another heat trapper. We’re trying to take breaks, but that’s not always possible with critically ill patients. The skin on our faces is becoming irritated, and we are having to be very intentional about our hands and wrists so that they’re not raw from all the washing and the hand sanitizer.

“We’re having conversations now about the balance between social distancing from our families and significant others versus self-care and family support. Most of us in our unit are choosing to stay at home because the emotional support we’re getting, the smidgen of normalcy, is important to us. That’s a delicate balance and one we’re not taking lightly. We’ve hit the point where this is the normal for the foreseeable future. There’s resignation that comes with that, and knowing what to expect when I walk through the door of the hospital each day. I do worry about our nurses at the end of this. We’re all going to be a little shell-shocked and probably have a little PTSD, to be honest. But we are making a difference and at the end of the day, that helps to know.”

“My opinion—you’re very valuable in your learning years. However, having another body in the room is a hazard for the patient. You could be asymptomatic. As a matter of fact, a fourth-year student tested positive literally yesterday.

“Most of my friends are actually not in medicine. On March 11, I made an Insta story about why we should care about Covid, and why it’s not just the flu. I got a DM from a med student who said I was playing into sensationalism. He said I should watch what I disclose to the public. It’s very odd. I think there are still people in my field who think this isn’t that serious. Personally, if they need me in the hospital, I would absolutely go. I was on track to go into psychiatry. But now I’m toying with the idea of applying to internal medicine and psych combined. Internal medicine is what controls the intensive care unit. They’re the doctors we hear are getting infected.”

“It was inspired by isolation. I matched with this guy, and he commented on my ‘About Me.’ I’m wearing a unicorn head mask in my main photo. He said, ‘Unicorns can’t get Covid-19, so you seem like you’d be lovely to socially isolate alongside.’ We talked about his preparedness. He really wove it in nicely to the flirting conversation. He had a lot of one liners available—all about toilet paper.

“It was probably only a week that we chatted before we met. All bars and restaurants were already closed, so we decided on Meridian Hill Park. He came from one entrance, I came from the other. He sat down on one part of the wall, I sat down arguably six feet away. We decided we needed some alcohol. I stood in the door of the apartment, and he sanitized and washed his hands, made two screwdrivers in little to-go mugs, and then we went on a walk. There was a goodbye hug that was a little awkward. It was sort of like an ass-out hug, to the side, a no-face-touching situation. And then I quickly ran away.

“Our second date was arguably way more awkward. It was my birthday. He bought me a cookie cake. I was, like, balancing the admonishments from my very news-attuned roommate, personal concerns about my health, my interest in eating a cookie cake, and the fact that he had hoarded toilet paper and we were down to six rolls. I was like, You know, I feel like I can be a good roommate here and get more toilet paper, but it may mean some concessions.

“I was walking out the door when that Covid-19 DC alert hit my phone. I almost didn’t go, but I was like you know what, I’m already dressed, I already put makeup on. He met me on U Street. There’s literally no one out. We went up to his apartment. I interrogated him about his Cloroxing and disinfecting strategies. He said he had fully disinfected every surface and we went through the list. We sat on opposite sides of the bar in his kitchen. We probably had a four-and-a-half feet between us. I think the guilt of being out and in a stranger’s apartment was hitting me and I was just like, I have to get out of here.

“I feel like I am kind of done with the in-person interactions. If I’m not seeing like my best friends, am I really going to start dating a stranger?”

“It’s been extremely competitive. Intense. Twenty-four-seven. I’ve been doing this for more than 30 years, and I’ve never seen so many moving parts at once. There’s been a few big tax bills that if you were a tax lobbyist you probably have experienced this. Because you had a deadline, it involved a lot of money, it moved fast, and you needed to know what the hell you were talking about. But tax legislation is one piece of the pie. This was the pie. And we’re not done yet.”

“I noticed customers are watching how I’m bagging stuff. So I just try to have a conversation to try to ease them. I also do pricing so I’m always hanging tags or signs, and a couple days ago, I had a lady scream at me because I didn’t have gloves on. I really can’t use gloves because the backing of the tags get really sticky and you end up with a big mess. I have a face mask. I showed her the hand sanitizer in my cart that I use frequently, and it just didn’t seem to calm her down. You’ll get three or four people like that a day. Then you’ll get another one at that level and you’re like, Oh my gosh, why am I doing this? You’ll end up having to go into a back room to calm down because somebody else touched you instead of saying, ‘Excuse me’ [before passing by].

“I have asthma so that scares me. We were having senior hour one day when a man came down our spaghetti aisle. He’s coughing. He’s not covering his mouth. He has no mask. I freaked out. I’m like, Okay, Jane, at least you had your mask on. But I was angry and I just felt like it was so inconsiderate that he wasn’t thinking about anybody else.

“We had a couple customers bring in cookies, banana bread, wanting to make us feel appreciated. It’s very, very good, because before all this, let’s face it: Working in a grocery store, a lot of people make you feel like you’re beneath them. When you feel like Why am I putting myself in danger? and then a customer who has come for a long time says, ‘Thank you so much for doing what you’re doing,’ that’s one of those moments when you step back and say, I’m doing it for somebody else.”

“I’m in Senior Planning, so I’m in the mix of it all, planning the spring events. Almost everyday we’re all talking and texting about whether or not they’re going to happen. It’s really devastating. We’ve been fundraising for forever. We usually do Senior Picnic at Smokey Glen Farm. The seniors wear all their college stuff, take a bunch of pictures, and hang out just as a celebration of being done with the college process. I think we’ve raised $12,000.

“All of my friends have their prom dresses. And now, we don’t know what we’re going to do with them if it gets canceled. I got my dress in New York. I was dropping my sister off at JFK Airport and I decided to walk into the Macy’s there, which was huge. I was with my mom. She was like, ‘I like this one. This is the one you need to get.’ It’s teal, kind of a satin material, with a lace-up back. My friends, we were going to get a bus to take us to DC and have dinner and take pictures. It’s upsetting because you listen to pretty much everyone older than you talk about these things. All these memories, especially prom and graduation. We’ve kind of realized how much we miss being together, which I think will make the times that we are together in the future better.”

“I was going to this private gym, but now I’m just working out in my garage. I played about three or four days ago, on this public court near my apartment down near the Wharf. But I haven’t had a serious practice or anything. I’ve been doing a lot of core stuff and playing soccer in the garage; it’s something different. I’m trying to get a bunch of games in my apartment, like a mini basketball hoop or the little mini golf things—that’d be cool—but they’re all sold out. I’ve been watching a ton of Netflix. I watch How to Get Away with Murder, I started Grey’s Anatomy for the first time. This one show called Insecure.

“This is definitely going to be the longest time I’ve gone without tennis. I don’t think I’ll get this much time off ever again. But I think it’s a good time to reflect, to kick back and take care of the little things in life. You’re not really thinking about it when you do it all the time but, I definitely miss competing. I think everyone’s having that same feeling right now.”

“Delivery business has definitely jumped up three times—anywhere between 30 and 40 deliveries on a Friday and Saturday. But then foot traffic has definitely declined. We deal with a lot of tourists around the Convention Center. It is a scary time. If this lasts for another two months, how long are people going to stock up?

“I don’t see anyone buying a bottle. If somebody bought one before, they’re buying two or three now. There’s a guy who every other day would order a six-pack and a pint or something. He ordered two cases of beer and a couple handles. Corona has definitely slowed down, I’ll tell you that. I order Corona every other week, and I didn’t have to order last week. Definitely vodka has a coronavirus bump to it. There was an article that said you can use Tito’s as a hand sanitizer. [Editor’s note: Tito’s says its products are not strong enough for that.] People went crazy. Everything that was clear and 100-proof, like grain alcohol, all sold out in a few hours. I usually don’t carry Everclear. Who buys Everclear? And then the next day I tried to order it and they were all sold out. You still can’t get it.”

“The bulk of our work was around softening the ground for the eventual nominee. But now we believe that coronavirus will be the defining issue of the election. We decided to focus all hands on deck, and start creating content holding Trump accountable to the way he’s poorly handling the pandemic. I’d be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge that there’s some risk to the political calculus. We see it as a public policy issue, and therefore a political issue.

“Our Tucker Carlson mashup [in which the Fox host criticizes the White House’s response] is airing in swing states. Oftentimes we look for conservative messengers to deliver the message. And the calamity of how the administration is handling the whole situation—even Republicans are coming out against him. So there’s an embarrassment of riches in terms of moments that we can pick and choose from to tell the story. And that particular video, we didn’t manufacture anything. Those are all clips that are out in the ether, and our job was to collate that and present it back to the American voter.

“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that anything could happen, especially now. The beauty of being a digital-first organization is that we can turn on a dime. We’re not booking out advertising inventory months in advance. I know people that are in the ad-buying space right now—literally, all their plans have been dashed, with the NBA and all the sports leagues cancelling their events.”

“Mostly, clients want to understand how to strike the right tone, and they want to know what voters are looking for. I think that people are looking for empathy from their politicians, first and foremost. Not even just the coronavirus itself, but the feeling of being locked inside your house, of not knowing where the next paycheck is going to come from, and the anticipation that I think we all have about what’s going to happen next. What I think a lot of Americans are ultimately going to want to ask is how did this happen, and what can we do to prevent it from ever happening again? A lot of times, politics is like a play. There are good guys and there are bad guys. And I don’t think that the American public has made the determination yet about who the bad guy is here.

“I think the Democrats are making a huge mistake by attacking the president on this issue. I don’t think anyone at this specific moment really wants to hear about partisan politics, or things that reek of Republican versus Democrats. I think you lose points right now by just sort of mindlessly attacking the president’s coronavirus response.

“For Republicans, I would say the number one thing you can do is highlight the example the President has made of effective leadership, and talk about the issues and things he’s doing that are affecting everyday peoples’ lives. Ignore the media hyperbole and attacks on him. If the president continues to do what he’s doing and is successful in leading us out of the crisis, he’ll be easily reelected to a second term.

“September 11, I put this on the same scale. It changed what we talk about dramatically, and in one direction. I think you can expect the coronavirus, and the aftermath of this, to shape our politics for the next decade. That’s how big a deal it is.”

“There were ten of us. We spread out to make sure we did our social distancing. We did everything on a cell phone, so it was just positioning it to get the whole band. We had our [sound] engineer there to make sure things were done right, and that was it!

“With go-go, the audience is a part of the show. We tried to perform as if we had one. One of our percussionists was on his phone and kept telling us, ‘We’re up to 8,000, we’re up to 10,000, we’re up to 12,000, we’re up to 20,000!’ I don’t know how it didn’t get picked up on the microphones but he kept doing that the whole time. There were a few times when I would walk out of the shot to read the comments [rolling in, in real-time]: ‘It’s my birthday and this is one of the best parties that I’ve had—I can party with Rare Essence right here in my living room.’ It was a lot of stuff like that. I saw a couple of ‘em say ‘I’m going to the bar, I’ll be right back.’ [Laughs.] But the bar is probably in their kitchen.

“It was an awesome experience to have all of those people partying together in their own space, listening and commenting and dancing. Before we could even finish this first concert, we were getting comments like you have to do this again.”

“I love what I do. I really haven’t done anything else in 30 years. The kids know me, and I have a lot of good relationships with the parents. I did a show not too long ago where I performed for the mom’s four-year-old, and I actually had done the mom’s party when she was four. Some parents have texted me saying, ‘Hey Zucchini, How you doing? How you making it through all of this?’

“As much as I like performing, I never thought how desperately I would love to just be in front of a crowd right now. I’m usually out of the house at 8 in the morning, don’t come home until 7 at night. I had a Zoom party with a bunch of friends. I didn’t even know what Zoom was a week ago. I kid you not.

“I was completely booked through April and May. The good news is, nobody called to cancel. Everybody rescheduled. Which is great, but a lot of entertainers I’ve talked to, they’ve had to issue refunds.

“I started getting a couple emails from parents that are like, ‘Is there any way you can do a birthday party online?’ I said I don’t really know what to do, I’ve never done one online, I don’t even know what to charge. My normal fee to show up and do a live show is like $375. And so I said, ‘Yeah maybe I’ll give you 20 minutes of magic on Zoom. I’ll do like 20 minutes and then I’ll lead all the kids in happy birthday to the birthday child. And I’ll just do it for like 125 bucks.’

“I’m desperately hoping it doesn’t go through the summer. It’s tough, but I try to keep it in perspective. I’ve always had this attitude that whatever I’m going through, somebody out there has it worse. I try to remind myself of that. I try to not feel sorry for myself.”

“I don’t really strip, which is funny, I know. My performances are mainly limited to the aerial stuff or pole dance. I might wear a real sexy outfit or some pasties and a thong like burlesque. What I’ve been doing is expanding my sew business. I make dancewear. Instead of going to work from 7 PM till 3 in the morning, I sew my evening away. I have 50 pieces I’m almost done with, like little bikini tops, G-strings, one-pieces. Besides not earning any money and living off the rainy-day money that I have stashed away, I’m a homebody, so it really hasn’t been affecting me much. My son can’t go on his little baby playdates. He’s probably wondering in his little mind why we’re in the house all day, everyday. I can set up my rig in the backyard and condition when it’s nice outside. There are various exercises you do hanging in the air. My son likes to bounce around so I do a little mom-and-son workout. Since I don’t have any weights at my home, I usually use him ‘cause every time I start doing sit-ups, he wanna sit on my legs.”

“There are about 400,000 food insecure people who we provide food to on an annual basis. Our biggest constraint is we’re purchasing a lot more food—more than we ever have in the 40 years of the food bank. We used to get 60 percent of it donated by retailers. We’ve seen a dramatic reduction, close to 55 percent at this stage. We just placed an order for 30 truckloads of food, which is unheard of for us. We’d typically order five. And we’re seeing longer lead times for some of these products to come in. Peanut butter is taking twice as long. The price of rice and canned fruit is higher. Much of this is where it’s being produced, canned, and shipped to the US. Some of the challenge is transportation as borders close. There’s confusion and delays. In some cases the products are all there—it’s not the manufacturers not releasing them—it’s just the transportation brokers that we work through are having challenges.

“We just started to talk about the next six to nine months. We’ve already seen a decline in volunteers, and we’ve also asked for a decline since we’re trying to space everyone safely in the warehouse. We anticipate that we’ll have to get the support of the National Guard or others for packing and distributions. Even as the pandemic subsides, we think the larger impact for our region will be the vast number of unemployed or underemployed individuals out there. Our numbers will only grow. It’s of huge concern. Many have never navigated the emergency food-assistance network before. We need to build awareness for them to understand how to do that, and to feel like they can do it with dignity and without stigma—so that those who truly need food come to us.”

“As we were browsing pet profiles online, we came across Goldie. We saw that she was ten-and-a-half years old. The folks at the Humane Rescue Alliance described the adoption to us as a fos-pice situation [a combination of fostering and hospice]. She has some serious health issues. The idea was to focus on quality of life. She’s had two types of cancer. She has some tumors growing back, and they’ve said more surgery is not advisable. She also has arthritis, and partial paralysis on one side of her face. She’s on a couple different medications to manage all of that. We brought her home not really sure how much energy she’d have, but she’s been very psyched to go out on 20, 30, 40-minute walks, and to chase squirrels. We figured out in the first few days what she wants to eat, which is either wet food made of chicken, or straight-up rotisserie chicken. They told us when we adopted her that she’s kind of picky. But she’s eating well. It’s been like a really delightful project. There’s a lot to think about logistically that we weren’t dealing with before. That occupies our time in a really good, satisfying way.

“While I’m [virtually] teaching, Goldie comes in and lies next to me. One of the things we really love about her is how affectionate she is. She does a thing where she walks up to me, turns 180 degrees, then sits on my feet. It’s very funny. Becky has taken up puzzles to fill the time, so she’s got, like, her puzzle station in one corner of our bedroom. She’s been bringing the doggy bed over there, and Goldie sits next to her, almost on her.

“She’s doing well now, but on Sunday evening [a little more than a week after we adopted her], Goldie became very lethargic all of a sudden, not getting up off the couch. We were on alert. We didn’t know what was wrong, and we weren’t sure about getting her to the vet immediately. We decided to wait it out for the night. We were very relieved that on Monday morning, she seemed better, and by midday, she was happy to be eating and going on walks. When we made the decision to adopt an older dog, there was some awareness of, We don’t necessarily want to make that decade-and-a-half commitment, because we don’t know what our life looks like with a pet, but we know we can make it work for the shorter term. I certainly wasn’t thinking about that when Goldie wasn’t feeling well. We love her. One of the biggest things I was stressed about was, oh man, we had only a week to show her a nice time? That’s all we’re gonna get?”

“At my age, I think I’m pretty good at adjusting to whatever comes, but this is the most weird situation that I’ve ever experienced. My father was killed at Normandy on June 22, 1944. That was probably the hardest thing I ever faced. But I think this is something completely new and unbelievable. And the fact that we’re coping at all is amazing. During WWII, the men were all fighting, but the families were all here in the United States living as normal lives as possible. Now, everyone’s involved. And we have nothing to compare it to; it’s incomprehensible.”

“We’re decreasing the density of people working in close proximity—that’s the biggest challenge in our industry. [Construction is considered an essential business.] At each of our projects, we’ve implemented a dedicated social distancing monitor. This individual’s job is to identify where we have clusters of subcontractor personnel. We’ve eliminated workers [other than the operator] from using elevators and construction hoists, to prevent those close quarters. We’ve added a lot more portable toilets and hand-washing stations. A lot of them are accessible right at the entrance to our projects. It is a little bit strange to go to work—I think anybody who travels outside of their home is gonna feel some of that fear. But I think if I’m practicing the things that I’m preaching—washing my hands, social-distancing—that I’ll minimize my risk.”

“Officers continue to come in every single day. You can see the different stress level. You can hear it in how the officers talk to you about certain things. I have a three-year-old daughter at home. I also have a pregnant wife. She’s at home right now, teleworking because she’s pregnant, and it’s a high-risk pregnancy. Law enforcement stress in general, they always say you’ve got to try to leave it at work, but sometimes that’s just not possible. Just because I take my uniform and badge and go home doesn’t mean all of a sudden Covid-19 disappears.

“The officers are still responding to sick person calls, they’re still responding to disorderly conduct, assault. Coronavirus adds an extra layer of drama. The other day I was out on a scene, there was a sick female near the Washington Monument grounds. She was laying down on the ground, not looking good, throwing up. Usually, it’s a normal situation—you run up there and treat them. But when you’re dealing with something like this, you make sure you’ve got your gloves on you, if you’re not wearing an N95 mask, at least you have it on you. When we’re interacting with them for something like that, we would keep a good social distance from them. If we can see that we’re not required to give emergency medical assistance, we’re standing, 6, 8, 10 feet back. Conversating with the individual, saying, ‘Hey, what’s going on? What are your symptoms?’ Then the fire department showed up, and they treated her. You can’t pat her on the shoulder. Beforehand, you probably would have been closer, gotten down on a knee, speaking to her while she was down. She was treated on scene. It was non-Covid related—probably dehydrated from her run. But you don’t know that, and that’s the thing.”

“Expectations are cut by a third if not half. I have my kids fill out a comprehension question at the end of the day—to make sure they did the work. One thing I think has been helpful is the administration is saying continuity, connection, and care are the most important things. So: Who cares what you get done in terms of content—we need to give kids structure and purpose and we need to do that in a caring and compassionate way. Don’t try to do what you would have done in person. Make sure to check in regularly but not in a way that a kid is sitting in front of the computer all day, because we know that is not good for them.

“We’re keeping clubs going, all the stuff that is low stakes—but builds relationships. We held an assembly with more than 300 people on Zoom. One day we did a Two Truths and a Lie contest with teachers and kids just for fun. This week we’re doing a pet show. We have student government elections coming up and we’ll do them virtually. We’re trying very hard to not cancel things, not postpone things, and as much as possible reimagine them.

“In my class meetings I’ve asked each kid the same question at the start of class. So I can hear their voice, validate that I see them, that we’re ready to connect and engage. You can’t just let them talk. It gets too chaotic and they’re all fighting for the camera to focus on them so they can finish their thought. Some of them love it. One kid was like, ‘I LOVE independent work, this is awesome. I get done early.’ She’s a kid who functions at a pretty high level, has a great relationship with her family so that makes it easier. Unfortunately, the same kids who don’t always come to school seem to be the ones not showing up for virtual classes or completing assignments. We’re losing track of some kids despite reaching out every way we know how and trying very hard to get information. Our counselors are working overtime.

“I’ve had students who wanted to talk to me just one on one. They’re anxious about the future and are having trouble imagining what normal is going to look like, what it’s going to be like back in the hallways, with other kids so close. It’s so sad. I don’t all-out sob but for this group of kids who will be seniors in the fall—what a moment that will be for them to go back and set the tone for the new year. One of the coolest things about school is you get to restart every year. No matter what happened the year before, you always get to set the tone again. To do that after this moment is going to be pretty wild. There’ll be a lot of tears, I think. We were talking to schools out west who have moved through the process of thinking about when they lose somebody, what are they going to do and how are they prepared to manage those moments? I don’t think we’re there yet. But it’s inevitable—whether it’s faculty, staff, parent, kid, grandparent, it’s going to happen.”

“I graduated from UVA in May of 2019. I do art, but not at a point where I’ve made it a full-time time career. I babysat for a family, and I also worked at Michaels—these were my sources of income. But the Michaels is closed. And then I can’t see the kids, because safety comes first. So I have no means of income. At first, I didn’t know what to do, you know? Eventually the family did reach out and send me a partial salary to the end of May, which was really kind of them. I haven’t touched it. I’m focused on just paying off my rent: $1,800 a month.

“I did qualify for EBT [food assistance], but the issue is that I can’t reach the offices—everything is just moving slowly, and also terms of filing for unemployment. If you go to the Maryland website, they’re asking you to apply on certain days and hours due to so many people filing for unemployment. I don’t have savings. I’ve been living paycheck to paycheck. But because more people are home, I’ve actually been doing a lot better in my art sales. I published a coloring book, and more people have been ordering my coloring books. But there’s no security, and I miss that. Right now, I don’t know. I’m kind of just hoping that this unemployment check comes in, and the stimulus. That would definitely help.

“It’s hitting us—how badly the humanities and the arts were hit. We make our money mostly from people coming to shows. I was going to have an arts show, but I had to cancel. I had a few pieces I just created, and I was going to do it in downtown DC. But even if things do get better, I still don’t [think we should be] in the same intimate space so soon already.”

“Friday the 13th is when everything started to shut down. By Monday [March 16], we were getting crazy amounts of calls. We definitely have people reaching out who are due as far as September and October. A lot of those folks maybe have considered a home birth but then decided well, maybe not this time. And now they’re thinking, no this is the time. A lot of people are also looking to transfer pretty late—I had someone call me who was 39 weeks. Essentially, she could have a baby at any moment.

“We’re doing a lot of virtual visits, having clients purchase their own blood pressure cuffs. We’re keeping the intimate parts where we’re closer than six feet as short and as safe as possible. As it’s spring time, we can do some visits outside, and then entering the house only for the part of the visit where we’re putting our hands on the belly, listening to the baby. I do have a cloth mask, since I can’t get my hands on any disposable ones, so I’m wearing that. If I’m doing home visits, I go to [one] house and then I come home and wash and change my clothes before I go to somebody else’s house.

“We had a birth the second week of April. She lives in Greenbelt—this was her first baby. We did abnormal things. We always wash our hands, but [typically] wouldn’t wear gloves for putting a hand on a back or giving a comforting touch. I brought in a towel and put all my stuff on it so nothing was touching the ground. I wore a mask the entire time, 30 hours, which was pretty difficult—so much of what we do is facial expressions. You can glean a lot from somebody by looking at them, and I feel like she couldn’t see me. I feel like I was much more aware of how close we were sitting. There were times I had to be closer than six feet supporting her, and instead of sitting in front of her, I would try to sit behind her or to her side so she wasn’t blowing on me. We assume everybody is infected—she probably wasn’t, but we had to treat her as if she was. Her mom lives right down the street and really, really wants to meet the baby. But she’s over 65 and doesn’t feel like she can come and meet the grandbaby because she’s too afraid of getting sick. That’s really hard—grandparents won’t be able to meet their grandchildren for a while. But it also felt like a break from the crazy world because we were in this cocoon for a bit.”

Rachel: It took about a year and a half to get open. We joke we were like the people on house hunters who are like ‘We want this big shiny new mansion’ and we sort of found it [in an Ivy City warehouse], which was crazy, way before we had anything except a business plan together. It forced us forward because we knew we had a landlord that believed in us. Fundraising is always a challenge. Our process was no different and we had a mix of investors and an SBA loan. We had a third from private investors, a third from the loan, and a third between ourselves and the landlord, Douglas [Development].

Molly: Besides now, the opening was the craziest week of our lives. It was a race to the finish between our contractors, hiring the team, and ordering food. We got our permit, our health inspection, and our liquor license, all on the same day—the day before we opened for business.

Rachel: There wasn’t one piece of food or drink the day before opening. We were calling all of these vendors and asking them to move mountains. We opened our doors Friday, and Saturday was the busiest day The Lane will ever see. There was a line down the block.

Molly: We were open for exactly one month and we exceeded every projection we had for ourselves. We were nearly cash flow positive.

Rachel: Then things changed so quickly. We started the week [in mid-March] thinking, ‘Let’s plan activities to get people to get in the door and stay excited, and properly communicate our cleaning and safety.’ And by the end of the week we had to close. We decided we’d take care of our 20-person staff as long as we could. Then we started on practical things. How do we donate our food? How do we shut down our HVAC?

Molly: We were frantically calling insurance companies. Everyone thought it was a two week thing. Now, it’s a whole different ball game of contingency planning. I wish I had a crystal ball. Trying to stay on top of the government stimulus package and make prudent decisions is tough, on top of having spun up a virtual [children’s event] company, which we didn’t expect. The families need each other more than ever right now. We have two or three events a day. We’re doing it on top of homeschooling our kids.

Rachel: There are very hilarious accidents, like we didn’t expect to become digital video producers and come up with guidelines for production quality and how you should perform in front of a group of three year-olds.

Molly: The interesting thing about a business like this is our kids can be involved. Our kids are attending every event. And the resources we’re sharing with people we can test out with our kids.

Rachel: Molly did a scavenger hunt in her house. I made up an alphabet jumping game. We’ll just keep going. We’re certainly cognizant there’ll be a re-ramp period, figuring out when people feel comfortable in public again, or have the economic stability for disposable income. But having spent this much time in your home with your kids, everyone wants community again and is dying for social interaction. We can’t wait to throw our doors open for them again.

“A couple days after initially deciding to close, the owners got together and decided to open up for limited takeout service. I am helping run it out of Little Coco’s, one of our sister restaurants. I was elated to be able to even pay bills, but I think there’s also a lot of guilt with that, realizing that most of your coworkers will not be working. What do you say to your friend who’s at home and waiting for unemployment to go through because the site’s still not up?

“My salary has been cut by 50 percent. My partner is in the restaurant industry as well and currently out of work. And our roommate, because she’s been furloughed, her visa is now ending. So now we have to pay for a two bedroom apartment on our own because she’s moving out. Trying to find someone to fill that space during a quarantine is essentially impossible. Our property company actually raised our rent during all of this.

“The only places I go are home and to the restaurant, because handling people’s food, I want to limit exposure. For the front-of-house, in total, there are three of us. Usually it’s around 10 people. To minimize contact and make sure the entire staff doesn’t catch the virus if one person has it, we work very long shifts by ourselves, and then no one cross-pollinates essentially. We’ve set up tape to show correct social distancing. We’ve delegated separate screens so no one is touching the same thing. Gloves and handwashing. We put a lot of things in place.

“In the beginning, people were over-tipping, and I have seen that dwindle off a little bit. I think the more that this becomes routine life, people just have less money to spend. The one positive thing is that people have been really kind. That doesn’t always happen, especially when you’re in the hospitality industry. At one point, I had a man tell me, ‘Thank you for doing God’s work’ as I was handing him a pizza.”

“I don’t know what would be more scary or less scary—delivering next week or delivering three months from now. You don’t know if it’s going to get worse or better, or what the world will look like. When I was pregnant with my first, my anxiety was more about the unknown—about freaking out at every little twinge. With my second, I was definitely stressed—my older girl was having some health tests and I remember thinking, How am I not going into labor? But this is a different type of stress.

“For both [previous] births, my mom was there next to me in the delivery room. She was very active, and it’s a different kind of comfort. My husband was by my side the whole time. The hospital policy on having a support person has been changing week to week. First it was, ‘Absolutely no visitors.’ Then it was, ‘You can only have one support person.’ Now it’s, ‘One support person can come, but they can’t leave the entire time.’ And then in some hospitals they’re not even allowing support people. That’s a fear. If my hospital said it was really important for my husband not to be there, I’d FaceTime my birth, I guess.

“I thought about a home birth, but I have more faith in the hospital system, if something were to go wrong. If I did give birth at home, there is a retired OB doctor on my street, and I have my local pediatrician down the street. They’d probably help. Even my husband—he’d YouTube it.

“My appointments are in the hospital. Everyone is in masks. Being in the elevator, you pray nobody comes in when the doors open. You don’t sign in, you just use your words. It feels so scary. You walk in and they look at you like you could be infected. And you could be. It’s probably very scary for them, too.”

“Yes, we’d normally be quarantined to some extent with a newborn, but we wouldn’t be quite so stuck. There are shortages on diapers and wipes, and feeling like we need to be prepared for weeks of not being able to go to the grocery store or even get things online adds another level of anxiety. Even formula—we’re breastfeeding, and I did buy one box of formula just in case—but knowing there’s the potential to need it and not be able to get it is frightening. We had only bought one box of newborn diapers and had been given a few, but once this started and we tried to stock up, we could only get one box of newborns at the store. A friend was able to send two boxes of size ones. I tried to get wipes and finally managed to order a box on Amazon, but it won’t be here for a couple weeks.

“There are so many recommendations to avoid the hospital and doctor’s office, and yet you have a newborn that you have to take to the pediatrician. The pediatrician’s office is locked so we have to call when we get there and they come get us and take us right to a room. The doctors and nurses are wearing masks, and they have a tent set up outside. You’re already scared about RSV and the flu, and to add this in…

“My husband has to go to work, he’s the livelihood of our family right now, and he’s considered ‘essential’—but we need help, so I’ve had to allow the grandparents in. It takes so much trust all around. We don’t want to put the grandparents at any more risk—I think that’s the biggest stressor to me in this whole thing. But at some point you need to do what you need to. We’re taking all the precautions that we all can. The newborn, she’s not going to remember any of this, but it’s so far from the newborn experience I wanted to have and thought we would have.”

“I do a mix of psychiatric initial evaluation, medication management, and psychotherapy. I’m doing that either by phone, FaceTime, or Zoom sessions. I’m still coming to the office. I think it’s good for patients for me to be in the same setting where they’re used to seeing me. I was in communication with a lot of other psychiatrists and therapists and we all made that decision [to work remotely] around the same time, around the time the government closed the schools in DC and Maryland.

“It’s been a fairly full schedule, anywhere from eight to 10 appointments a day. Most people have been keeping their appointments. I am set up to do my prescriptions all electronically. There’s a lot of patient anxiety around making sure they can get the treatment they need and medication they need. I’ve had a lot of people calling to make sure they can get 90-day supplies of medication.

“Doing video and at-home sessions definitely feels very different than being in a room with somebody. You lose the natural flow of conversation when it’s happening over a video camera. When you’re doing FaceTime or Zoom calls, you and your patient are both looking at yourselves, which kind of redefines the traditional therapy session. For some people, I think that interferes with their ability to relax and focus on what they want to say. Several patients prefer to do phone sessions rather than video.

“More people are currently home with their families, so you don’t have that same experience of having a private, dedicated space for your therapy sessions. It brings up issues of confidentiality. They’re often talking about their family members in sessions, and so it may stifle their ability to feel at ease and say whatever’s on their mind. Sometimes they’re sitting in a chair in their home office, sometimes on the couch with their pet, or sometimes even sitting on their bed. It’s definitely revealed a different side of them for me. It adds dimension, so that’s something positive.

“A number of people have brought up the parallel to 9/11 and how it felt to live in a society where things felt unsafe and unstable. A lot of people are talking about how to talk about this with their children, who have never gone through an experience like this, and how to provide reassurance in a time of uncertainty. I think for a lot of the patients it’s bringing up experiences of vulnerability in the past, whether it’s a past trauma or growing up in a household that’s unstable. All the things that keep people feeling healthy and stable in routine times are the things that we really need to be doubling down on now. So limiting how much they’re constantly updating themselves on the news, having healthy sleep and exercise habits, staying connected with friends as much as possible, and making sure that they’re taking care of their physical health and emotional health.

“I am managing my own emotional reaction by trying to follow the advice I am giving—trying to adhere to a routine, exercising, limiting my news consumption, staying connected with loved ones, and utilizing the newfound free time in ways I find relaxing. For me, that’s cooking, puzzles, TV series, and spending time with my dog. Not always successful, but I am trying.”