THURSDAy, MARCH 5 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST eZ SU C3
from the coronavirus hotspot of
Kirkland, was unable to convince
her adult son and daughter that
she did not have disease after com-
ing down with n ausea a nd a fever.
“I said, ‘I’m fine. This is just like
the flu I’ve had my whole life. Let
me suffer in misery,’ ” Dahlberg
says.
She d rove to urgent care and
waited two hours before a doctor
sent her home with a note to reas-
sure her kids: She had a regular f lu.
In San Antonio, the archdiocese
issued a recommendation that
churches remove fonts of holy wa-
ter from church entrances.
on a royal Caribbean “Star
Trek”-themed cruise, signs on-
board advised “Vulcan salutes or
elbow bumps o nly.”
Anna Vagnerini, a 30-year-old
marketer in Charlotte, went to
Whole foods the other day to pick
up some fancy sparkling w ater and
coconut shrimp, but when she saw
the picked-over shelves of canned
goods she decided to get some fro-
zen broccoli, bell peppers and can-
nellini beans, too.
The vibe in Charlotte reminded
Vagnerini of the calm-weather
days leading up to a hurricane —
the jarring dissonance between the
sunny weather outside, and the
electrical current of low-grade pan-
ic that crackles through the air —
“it’s this small impending dread,
because you don’t know what’s go-
ing to go wrong, and it’s all that
anyone ever talks about.”
The impending dread isn’t s mall
for people who are a generation or
two older, who may be more vul-
nerable to covid-19, says Jameca
falconer, a St. Louis psychologist.
In Huntsville, Ala. — a state
roiled by rumors of a government
plan to quarantine c oronavirus pa-
tients there — Lauren Brown
opened facebook on monday to see
her mid-70-year-old grandmother
had shared someone’s post advis-
ing people to ward off the virus by
putting Neosporin up their nose
with a Q-Tip.
“Do NoT Do THIS,” Brown im-
mediately texted her grandmother,
who eventually backed off from the
idea. (Setting aside the nose thing,
the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention does not list Neosporin
as a coronavirus treatment.)
min Pummalee, a 26-year-old
graduate student in the District,
has told her parents not to fly from
Thailand to attend her may gradu-
ation ceremony, because their
flight was booked on Korean Air,
and she’s w orried they’ll get sick or
be quarantined, which would be
tough for her prediabetic father to
handle.
In the meantime , Pummalee is
desperately trying to stop touching
her face. She knows that surgical
masks don’t h elp, but she’s t aken to
wearing one on the metro anyway,
she says, because “if I touch the
mask instead of my o wn face, it will
be better.”
She doesn’t trust the people
around her to wash their hands.
She doesn’t t rust herself.
She doesn’t e ven trust the chem-
icals in her hand sanitizer.
“I know it’s like 99.9 percent ”
effective, she said. “But I think,
what’s going on with that 0.1 per-
cent?”
[email protected]
[email protected]chided panicked Americans who
are buying up the masks, saying
that they aren’t u seful i f you’re not
already sick and that hoarding
them may keep them out of the
hands of those who need them.
(“Seriously people — SToP BUY-
ING mASKS!” tweeted the U.S.
surgeon g eneral on Saturday.)
Symptom of coronavirus:
cough.
Symptom of coronavirus anxi-
ety: panic-shopping.
“Everything feels disgusting to
me now,” s ays Pandora orr, 36.
orr lives in Chicago, which has
yet to see a rash of confirmed c ases.
If she sets her lunch bag on the
counter at work, she has to clean
the bottom of it. She’s w iping down
her laptop whenever she has to
take it to m eetings.
“A s I’m talking to you in this
conference room, my e lbows are on
this desk,” she said, just now con-
sidering that they, too, would need
to be Purelled. “I feel like I’m going
a little crazy.”
It was in the middle of a trip to
London, Brussels and Paris last
week that Erin fogerty, 2 3, realized
that coming home to Seattle would
be no safer than being abroad.
Washington state has the most con-
firmed cases in the country, w ith at
least 28 confirmed patients and
nine deaths.
“If I don’t t hink about it I’m fine,
but when you start thinking about
these gross crazy germs” it can
quickly spiral into obsession, she
says. “Touching doorknobs and ele-
vators, that type of thing is becom-
ing very scary to me.”
Symptom of coronavirus: fever.
Symptom of coronavirus anxi-
ety: disorienting awareness that
every surface is crawling with mi-
croorganisms.
Nikhil merchant, 38, has taken
to meticulously wiping down the
treadmill at his suburban Los An-
geles gym before he uses it. “Your
senses are heightened to kind of
superimpose germs sitting on that
machine,” h e says.
merchant had completed the rit-
ual on monday and was about to
begin his run when he spotted a
wad of chewing gum in the tread-
mill’s c ellphone pocket a nd fled the
gym in o ver whelming mysophobic
disgust.
“I had to rethink, why am I being
so paranoid?” h e says.
Suspicion of treadmills and ele-
vators mutates into suspicion of
fellow humans: Are other people
washing their hands for two Happy
Birthdays? How much do I really
know about the habits and histo-
ries all these friends and co-work-
ers and strangers who are touching
all the things I’m touching right
before I forget not t o touch my f ace?
At a Boston cooking class last
week, rodrigo martinez, 47, real-
ized that the whole class would be
touching the ravioli dough during
the lesson, and he couldn’t h elp but
wonder if any of his fellow students
had recently spent time in China.
on Long Island, 74-year-old randy
foss canceled her weekly mah-
jongg group after she thought a
little too long about how everyone
has to touch the tiles that are used
to play the game.
melanie Dahlberg, 62, who lives
in renton, Wash., a half-hour driveCoronaVIrus from C1Washing and wringing our
hands because of coronavirus
BY KEITH L. ALEXANDERA jury in the District on
Wednesday found former PBS
talk-show host Ta vis Smiley v iolat-
ed his contract with the TV net-
work after hearing accounts of six
women who said he had sexually
harassed them when they worked
for h im.
After about 1½ d ays of delibera-
tions, the jury of seven men and
two women determined Smiley,
55, had acted counter to the net-
work’s morals clause, which pro-
hibited on-air talent from partici-
pating in any public behavior that
would negatively affect the em-
ployee or the n etwork.
The women testified through
video deposition that during their
tenure with Smiley’s company, TS
media, Smiley had pressured
them for sex or told lewd jokes.
The trial, w hich lasted a bout three
weeks, was held at D.C. Superior
Court because TS media, while
based in Los Angeles, is incorpo-
rated in the District.
Smiley admitted to having inti-
mate relationships with two of the
women, but testified he never
used his position as their boss to
pressure or threaten t hem. And he
said any jokes were innocent and
not i ntended to offend.
for 14 years, PBS distributed
Smiley’s late-night talk show to
238 PBS stations nationwide,
about 72 p ercent of its network.
The court case began when
Smiley claimed the network ter-
minated his contract without
proof of the allegations and sued
PBS for nearly $1 million. The
network countersued for about
$1.7 million that it said Smiley
owes in money it provided to him
for a season t hat never aired.
PBS a ttorneys said S miley could
be ordered to pay the network as
much as $1.9 million, including
penalties and fees. Judge Yvonne
Williams, who oversaw the trial,
scheduled another hearing to fi-
nalize Smiley’s f inancial penalties.
outside the courtroom a fter the
verdicts were read, three jurors
said the panel found the c umula-
tive testimony of the women to be
“credible.”
This wasn’t just ‘he said, she
said,’ ” said one of the jurors, a
38-year-old man from Northeast
Washington. “This was ‘he said,
she said, she said, she said, she
said, she said, she said.’ ”
Three jurors who spoke to The
Washington Post asked that their
names n ot be used to protect t heir
privacy.
The jurors said t hey also arrived
at their verdicts based on what
they determined as Smiley’s “lack
of contrition.”
“He just kept saying everything
was a lie. Not, ‘I don’t remember,’
or, ‘It was so long ago I can’t recall.’
He kept saying everything all of
these women were saying was a
lie,” s aid one 35-year-old man from
Northeast.
S miley repeatedly denied the
sexual harassment accusations
but acknowledged he was in a
long-term relationship with a
s enior producer at the time he
signed the contract for his 15thseason with the network. That
woman, who confirmed the rela-
tionship and was the seventh
woman to testify, never accused
Smiley of harassment. PBS bars
such relationships.
Smiley argued that because he
was not an employee of PBS, he
did n ot fall under the s ame rules as
those who worked for the net-
work.
After the verdict was read, Smi-
ley declined t o comment as he a nd
his mother, Joyce, rushed out of
the c ourthouse.
one of Smiley’s attorneys, John
rubiner, said his client planned to
appeal. “We are very disappointed
in the verdict, but we respect the
process.”
Paula A. Kerger, PBS president
and chief e xecutive, who attended
the entire trial, hailed the verdict
as “vindication for all of the wom-
en who came forward and shared
their stories” of Smiley’s alleged
harassment “as well as those wom-
en who wanted to come forward
but w ere afraid.”
PBS lead attorney Grace
Speights called the win a “victory
for PBS standing up for what was
right” and a “victory for any wom-
an who felt threatened or ha-
rassed.”
I n the video depositions, nearly
half of the women testified that
th ey f elt pressured t o comply with
Smiley’s requests for sex and that
they faced retaliation — even los-
ing their jobs — if they didn’t. The
other half described comments or
jokes by Smiley that they said
made them uncomfortable in theworkplace.
Smiley testified three times. He
said several of the accounts were
false and insisted he never acted
with retribution and never in-
tended to o ffend.
The allegations against Smiley
surfaced in late 2017, at the height
of the #meTo o movement when
women across the nation were us-
ing social media to voice their
stories and outrage r egarding sex-
ual harassment and sexual as-
sault.
During t he trial, o ne of S miley’s
attorneys, ronald S. Sullivan Jr.,
argued PBS t reated S miley u nfair-
ly because the network was also
dealing with sexual allegations
against C harlie rose, another PBS
host. PBS terminated r ose’s show.
Sullivan questioned PBS’s in-
ternal investigation of Smiley and
said the women never presented
any witnesses, text messages,
emails or phone records to sub-
stantiate their claims.
T he jury, t hough, was s wayed by
the accounts from the women.
Two jurors said listening to the
women lay out the details of Smi-
ley’s behavior in their own words
was the most challenging part of
the c ase.
“Hearing those stories was the
hardest part,” said a 35-year-old
juror from Columbia Heights, one
of the two women on the jury.
During the trial, she was often
seen shifting her body in her seat
and bowing her head when the
women spoke of various sexual
acts they said Smiley r equested.
kei [email protected]Jurors find Tavis Smiley violated contract with PBS
Hilda Johnson, a 51-year-old hos-
pital worker with blue highlights
in her hair and a “Hindsight is
2020 ” Bernie shirt, wanted to
know. They’d j ust move on to Plan
B. “If he’s not on the ballot, I’ll
write him in,” she said.
others were more suspicious.
Zach Johnson, 31, who works with
troubled youth, said “it’s kind of
disheartening” that young people
showed up to the polls in droves
and the DNC worked to quash
their will. “Biden told students he
didn’t want to hear them crying
about student debt. Biden’s not a
fighter. He’s not going to fight for
them. He’s corporate.”
“rise up! fight back!” shouted
Amy Hathaway, a New Hamp-
shire occupational therapist,
looking upset at the numbers on
the CNN screen. “I’m not ready to
say publicly what I’m going to do
or what will happen. That’s not a
threat, but I’m really angry at the
DNC and [party Tom Perez and
the other forces that are making
this such a fight for Bernie.”
Some volunteers packing up
the merch table looked up at the
CNN screen: “Woo! Utah! Woo!”
But their hearts didn’t seem to be
in it.
A group of students from the
University of Vermont were tak-
ing photos. They were wearing
their “I voted” stickers, and for
most of them it had been their
first political rally. They were
heading back to the dorm to order
pizza and watch the rest of the
results come in, but they were
hopeful.
“I think that just reflects Ber-
nie’s p olitics,” s aid Callie Woodell,- “A ll of his stances are so
optimistic for change for the fu-
ture and that reflects in the peo-
ple who like him.”
They’d been standing for five
hours, both tired and energized.
As for the results, they couldn’t
worry about them too much. They
had midterms the next day. So all
they could do was take the energy
of the night and pour it into their
grades.
[email protected]
Look at all the people here, and
the media presence that required
a riser so big it could have easily
held a small high school. She
wanted Bernie to win, but there
was no reason to be sad because
she’d vote for whoever becomes
the nominee: “I’m not crazy.”
Around 10 p.m., almost five
hours after doors had opened,
Sanders took the stage accompa-
nied by Jane and their children
and grandchildren. The crowdcheered for a minute straight.
He’d won his first election to be
Burlington’s m ayor in 1981 on this
very day, and that election had
seemed so impossible, but they
did it.
“Tonight I tell you with abso-
lute confidence that we’re going
to win the Democratic nomina-
tion and we are going to defeat
the most dangerous president in
the history of this country,” he
said, with perhaps a little less
confidence than usual. Biden had
already won in some surprising
places, including nearby massa-
chusetts.
This would be an election of
contrasts, he said, outlining how
he and Biden have differed, on the
Iraq War, on the bankruptcy bill,
without naming Biden by name,
but rather calling him “the other
candidate.”
Soon, all that was left were a
few stragglers amid an empty and
surprisingly clean event space;
there had been so many recycling
bins set up everywhere.
So what if he lost the night,tall hats that resembled papal
miters. Step 1: Curve sign around
your forehead. Step 2: Affix a
Bernie bumper sticker to the bot-
tom corners on either side so it
works like a band around the
back of your head.
“This way I don’t have to hold
my arms up,” said Corey Beutel,
22, a student at the University of
Vermont and the undisputed in-
ventor of the hat. As for the Super
Tuesday results, he was just in the
moment, though he thought what
the moderates had done was
“kind of [bull],” and was “mad at
Warren, who has the liberal vote
and could be consolidating it.”
Jane Sanders was on the stage.
“She’ll make a great first lady!”
campaign manager faiz Shakir
told the crowd.
Jane’s mic was muted; most of
the room could barely hear her,
but that didn’t mute the mood.
Those 15-year-old high school
freshmen from rural Vermont sit-
ting on the floor in the back with
their hair dyed various shades of
green and pink plopped there
because their legs were tired.
They were enthusiastic, over-
whelmed.
When Betty frye, a 69-year-old
volunteer from Brattleboro,
heard Sanders was doing his Su-
per Tuesday event in Vermont,
she cried. S he thought for sure
he’d be in California, but he has
his ritual of voting in Vermont for
every primary.
She and her friend Dora
Bouboulis posited that Bernie
Bros are actually a fictitious cre-
ation to make Bernie look bad. A
scheme, just like how the Demo-
cratic National Committee sup-
posedly hadn’t forced Elizabeth
Warren to drop out because she
does the job of siphoning off
Bernie’s votes. In the seven states
she’d canvassed, Bouboulis said
she’d never met a Bernie Bro.
“But you’ve met me!” frye said.
“I’m a Bodacious Broad for Ber-
nie!”
To Kathy olwell, a retired so-
cial worker from Burlington, this
felt so much better than 2016.members of Phish with friends
from the mallett Brothers Band
rocked out onstage, playing songs
that seemed to last 10 minutes
each. Signs around the venue
encouraged people to sign up for
the Army National Guard, head to
the concession stand for loaded
fries and “walking tacos,” join the
roller derby, attend an upcoming
gun show or a Darius rucker
concert.
Every few minutes, the room
erupted with deafening cheers.
Sometimes it was about minus-
cule changes to the results. Some-
times it was about the speakers
onstage, such as Burlington City
Councilor Ali Dieng shouting,
“November he will win!” At one
point, a college kid started
screaming because he thought he
saw a projection of Bernie’s head.
outside the room, in the wider
Bernie Universe, another feeling
seemed to reign. It was less chill.
“The establishment calls us an-
gry. Damn right we’re angry. We
live in the richest country in the
world, yet our students drown in
debt, children starve, and fami-
lies go homeless. If that doesn’t
make you angry, who are you
really fighting for?” rep. Ilhan
omar (D-minn.), who has en-
dorsed Sanders, tweeted before
the polls closed. Sanders didn’t
win her state.
Wednesday morning, other
surrogates surveyed the damage
and felt even more passionate.
“This is like every other issue
where majority wants 1 thing but
dominant political/corporate
forces drive opposite result. for
white establishment, this prima-
ry has been primarily about de-
feating a nearly successful grass
roots push for [universal] health
care & wealth redistribution,”
tweeted Bree Newsome, an activ-
ist in North Carolina, where
Biden won handily. Sanders’s na-
tional co-chair Nina Turner
retweeted it.
Back in Essex Junction, the
night was young. only a few of the
14 states had been officially lost.
“Who here is a cynical college
student?” asked Vermont Lt. Gov.
David Zuckerman. Almost no one
responded. Was cynicism d ead in
this room?
one guy, Jeff Crookes, was car-
rying a giant foamboard picture
of Sanders’s head that he bought
online in 2016. He lives in New
York and couldn’t vote on Super
Tuesday, but he does like to drive
around with his Bernie head in
the back window of his car, which
elicits a lot of honks.
for the other half of the room,
the CNN screen was hidden by
the giant press riser, so they could
live in blissful ignorance of the
numbers. “I’m not looking at my
phone. It’s hard to see the screen
or anything. But my support is
unwavering,” said Chris Schroed-
er, a straggly haired student at
nearby State University of New
York at Plattsburgh, who along
with a friend had m ade the im-
promptu decision to come to this
right after classes even though
they’d already driven down to
Boston to see Sanders on Satur-
day.
Some inventive college kids
had turned their Bernie signs into
sanders from C1
On Tuesday, mix of cheers and no chill
SAlwAN georgeS/THe wASHINgToN PoST
The night was still young for many sanders supporters at a super Tuesday rally in essex Junction, Vt.,
as the primary results were coming in. But elsewhere, some Bernie die-hards were more defiant.“All of his stances are so
optimistic for change for
the future and that
reflects in the people
who like him.”
Callie Woodell, 18-year-old
Bernie Sanders supporterMarVaTrVA |
Tu We Fr Th