C4 EZ SU THE WASHINGTON POST.SATURDAy, MARCH 21 , 2020
Woody, a hospice nurse in west-
ern Colorado, to tell her father-in-
law — a cancer survivor of more
than a decade — to stop picking
up her 9-year-old daughter and
11-year-old son after school two
weeks ago.
But Woody and her husband,
who works as a public informa-
tion officer for their community,
knew that the coronavirus threat
was something to be taken seri-
ously even before schools started
sending kids home. They didn’t
want to risk having potentially
asymptomatic children around
her father-in-law, she says, and
her kids understood why; they
still have vivid memories of see-
ing their grandfather on a ventila-
tor five years ago, when he be-
came gravely ill from bacterial
pneumonia. But for him, she says,
it’s been harder to accept the
separation.
“We’ve been faceTiming a lot,
and I think that will become
daily,” she says. “I think he’s start-
ing to feel isolated and down. You
know, these are his only two
grandkids, and they bring him so
much joy.”A
bout a week ago, Suzy Lea-
nos was watching a morn-
ing news report about the
coronavirus when her 15-year-
old son drifted into the room.
The whole family had just re-week and over the next three
weeks we’re selling hogs, and I
need to be there, and we are not
sure what’s going to happen.”
maybe her in-laws can still
watch her kids, if they’re all feel-
ing healthy, she says. “But if
they’re not —” she trails off, then
sighs. There’s no ideal solution,
and she wants to keep her in-laws
safe.
“I see it as we have to be respon-
sible,” she says. “Not so much for
ourselves, but for others.”
It was difficult for Jeanakeep her family’s farm in rural
Iowa running. Her 4-year-old
son’s preschool has closed, and
she pulled her 2-year-old out of
day care last week amid growing
concerns about the coronavirus.
Normally, her in-laws would
watch the boys while she and her
husband tend to their livestock,
but her father-in-law has a com-
promised immune system be-
cause of cancer treatments, and
now she isn’t so sure what to do.
“The nightmare is where it
comes to the farm,” s he says. “Thisturned the day before from a
weekend visit with Leanos’s par-
ents, who live about an hour
from her family’s home in or-
ange County, Calif.
Her son watched the news with
her for a little while, and then
declared: “‘We’re going to have to
stay away from my grandpa. He
just turned 68, and I don’t w ant to
get him sick,’ ” Leanos recalls. “It
was really touching. We’d talked
about seeing them again soon like
usual, and he was like, ‘I think
we’re going to have to put the
brakes on next weekend.’ ”
Her son and daughter were
supposed to spend their spring
break with their grandparents;
her father is teaching her son how
to drive, and her 10-year-old
daughter was excited to cook with
her grandmother. “They look for-
ward to it every vacation we get,”
Leanos says. “They’re bummed.
But I also think it hasn’t hit us
that hard yet. I know it’s p robably
going to hit them harder in a week
or so, when we can’t go over, we
can’t spend time together.”
for many families, the looming
threat of the coronavirus has am-
plified an uncomfortable, under-
lying awareness that there is a
finite number of holidays, family
vacations and visits to spend all
together in the years ahead —
which makes the loss of even one
feel all the more significant.
“Normally, once your parents
get older, you have a general sense
of, ‘Well, the clock is definitely
ticking, and something could
happen at any time for any rea-
son,’ ” Stuart Wexler says. “But
that doesn’t feel as anxiety-pro-
ducing as it does now, knowing
that this virus is around.”
Eddie Pasa, a 43-year-old musi-
cian from Springfield, Va., s ays it
is “heartbreaking” to keep his 9-
and 7-year-old kids away from his
parents. But his 7 6-year-old
mother had spinal surgery in feb-
ruary, he says, and protecting her
health is a priority. His kids are
missing their grandparents, and
even when Pasa recently stopped
by to check on his mother and
father, he stayed outside their
house.
“We are calling them periodi-
cally and letting them know we’re
okay,” he says. “Their voices lift
our spirits and — f or a little while,
at least — make everything all
right with the world.”
This is what remains, and for a
while, it will have to be enough:
the phone calls, the text messag-
es, the sight of a loved one’s
vaguely pixelated face on a phone
or computer screen. The hope of a
long-planned trip to Disney
World that might still work out.
And maybe — after enough days
have passed — a few chairs set up
in a sunny backyard, far enough
apart that a grandmother and a
granddaughter can safely speak
to one another across the strange
new distance.
[email protected]says. “maybe eventually we could
sit at a safe distance apart, out-
side in my m other’s b ackyard, and
talk. And of course there’s face-
Time.”
for most families, the practice
of social distancing has only just
begun, and there’s a sense that the
reality of the coming separation
hasn’t fully registered yet. Stuart
Wexler, a 44-year-old father of a
10-year-old son in Alexandria,
Va., suspects that it won’t be too
long before his son, Dash, starts
to truly miss his wife’s parents,
who live about an hour away and
spend time with their grandson
often.
“He sees them very much as a
part of his security blanket;
they’ve been there since the day
he was born. So I think as the days
go on, it’s going to get worse and
worse,” Wexler says. “We got my
mother-in-law set up on Skype —
we’ve never Skyped with them
because we see them all the time
— but we’re going to try that and
see if it does anything to close that
distance.”
Wexler’s mother, who lives in
florida, canceled her plans to fly
up and see them this week. Dash
only sees his paternal grand-
mother a few times a year, so
missing the visit “is really disap-
pointing,” Wexler says. His son is
supposed to take a special trip to
Disney World with his grand-
mother in June, and Wexler has
hoped that would be a chance for
the two to create a formative
childhood memory. Now that,
too, seems uncertain: “We’ll see
how it goes,” Wexler says with a
rueful laugh.
Charlie, a 51-year-old father of
two in Bethesda, md., who spoke
on the condition that his last name
be withheld to protect his family’s
medical privacy, says that his wife
and 16-year-old daughter had
planned to travel to Boston this
week to visit Charlie’s father-in-
law, who temporarily relocated to
the area for cancer treatment. But
his father-in-law called several
days ago to ask them to cancel.
This was a disappointment for his
wife and daughter, Charlie says,
adding that his 6-year-old son is
especially close to his grandfather.
“my son and my father-in-law
are best friends, and it’s going to
sink in soon that he hasn’t seen
his Pop Pop in a while,” Charlie
says. “We aren’t sure if or when
they’ll be able to come back from
Boston. Especially once the
weather turns and Pop Pop is not
taking my son to the park, when
he’s not at my son’s soccer games
— if we ever have soccer again —
he’s going to really feel it then.”
The sudden absence of grand-
parents is not only an emotional
blow but a profound logistical
stress for those who count on
them for primary or backup
child-care support — like Kather-
ine marcano-Bell, 34, who has to
grAndpArents from C1
Sacrificing family time for the sake of grandparents
CLoCKWIse FroM top:
suzy Leanos’s father, Villedo
Correa, and her son emilio at a
soccer match last year in san
diego; stephen Woody with his
grandchildren stella Woody
and Wilson Woody; J anet
robinson with her
granddaughter nevaeh Connor
on Halloween.FAMILY PHOTOSthe briefings [in their current
form]. It’s crucial for us to be
there. There’s n o substitute for the
live give-and-take with the presi-
dent and his [advisers]. The
American people, everyone, can
see in real time how prepared he
is, [and hear] what the latest in-
formation is” under independent
questioning, not via speeches or
news releases.
Another broadcast correspon-
dent said the anxiety of working
in the White House is “more pro-
nounced” now than it was after
the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11,- “It’s unusual to go to the
White House every day and get
your temperature taken a few
times a day,” he said. “It’s unusual
to attend b riefings in which [we’re
required] to sit apart from each
other. The new normal is not
pleasant.”
Even so, this reporter and oth-
ers said they’ll keep coming back.
“Everyone in the briefing room
is more concerned about what’s
going to happen to the country
than whether they will get sick,”
said Philip Wegmann, a White
House reporter for the website
realClearPolitics, possibly over-
stating the case for his fellow
reporters.
“It’s not like we are firefight-
ers,” he added, “but we still have
an important job to do.... No
matter what, I want to be there. I
want to do my job. I want to push
the White House on what they’re
doing to beat this thing. Who
wouldn’t?”
[email protected]
such as holding the briefings via
remote audio or video hookups —
a technological possibility but in-
ferior to actually being there.
“If someone walks into that
room [with an infection], we’re all
going home,” said a network cor-
respondent, who, like several oth-
ers, spoke on the condition of
anonymity because his employer
hasn’t a uthorized h im to speak for
publication.
He added, “I think it’s critical
now, more than ever, to maintainbecome a highlight of the Wash-
ington social calendar, this year
scheduled for April 25. Karl said
the organization hopes to revive it
in late summer or early fall.
reporters say they are aware of
the fragile state of their daily
work. A single positive t est for the
virus among a member of the
press corps or White House staff
would probably put an end to
in-person briefings. This would
force reporters and government
officials to devise an alternative,Still, he said, “it’s a strange,
eerie time to be at the White
House. The temperature checks,
the empty seats in the briefing,
the fear of the unseen. Empty
seats in the briefing room for a
presidential press conference?
When has that ever happened?
But nobody can argue it is unnec-
essary.”
The WHCA on Wednesday took
the inevitable step of postponing
its annual dinner, a celebrity-
studded, 3,000-seat gala that hasnumber of available seats in half
and mandated that only reporters
with assigned seats could enter.
The order has thinned the ranks
in the press room and work area
from around 100 people on a typi-
cal day to about 30. reporters now
sit during briefings with an empty
seat between them, creating an
unusual sight: a presidential news
conference in a half-empty room.
Nevertheless, President Trump
suggested on Thursday that the
conditions may still be unhealth-
ful. “You’re actually sitting too
close,” he told reporters while
standing in front of a group of
federal health officials during a
briefing that lasted more than an
hour. “We should really get rid of
another 75 to 80 percent of you.”
He added that his preference
would be to have only “two or
three” reporters that he likes in
the room.
It wasn’t clear whether he was
needling the press or merely reit-
erating the “social distancing”
recommendations of health-care
experts.
ABC News reporter Jonathan
Karl, t he WHCA’s p resident, noted
that his organization typically
presses the White House for more
briefings and access for r eporters,
and so it’s ironic to be restricting
access now. But he said the c hang-
es are necessary to preserve the
news media’s ability to keep cov-
ering the president and to keep
journalists healthy.
“It’s a huge story,” he said. “It’s
important for us to be there. But
we have to be smart about it.”to avoid triggering an invisible
delayed-action land mine,” said
Steve Herman, Voice of America’s
White House bureau chief.
Herman has covered natural
disasters and worked in combat
zones, and he traveled to fukushi-
ma, Japan, in 2011 to report on the
meltdown of a nuclear reactor.
But he said that he’s never felt “as
much apprehension about getting
to a story as riding the metro to
the White House over the past
week.”
Herman and other reporters in
the 49-seat briefing room and
small workspace behind it are
avoiding touching door handles
and other surfaces and are wash-
ing their hands frequently. Bottles
of hand sanitizer have sprouted
around the premises like spring
flowers. White House staffers also
take reporters’ temperatures
when they enter the press area
and periodically throughout the
day. Anyone registering an elevat-
ed reading, as one unidentified
reporter did on Saturday, is ban-
ished.
The number of journalists and
technicians permitted to enter the
briefing room — a rectangular
space built over the old indoor
swimming pool enjoyed by Presi-
dent roosevelt in the 1930s — w as
cut sharply on monday by order of
the White House Correspondents'
Association (WHCA).
The organization, which repre-
sents journalists in negotiations
with White House officials, c ut the
reporters from C1
For reporters at the White House, crowded spaces and temperature checks
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
president trump gives a briefing at the White House, where spaced seating is assigned to allow for
some social distancing. the White House has also instituted temperature checks for reporters.TheMovieDir ectoryhasgonedark.Wewillraisethecurtainagain
assoonaseventswarrant.