Social Lives are Moving Online as the U.S. Adjusts to the Coronavirus (Published 2020) (2024)

It was their big debut. Then the pandemic hit.

“I went from having the greatest accomplishment of my life to everything I have planned is gone,” said Katie Orphan, a Los Angeles author.

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Musicians are streaming free concerts for their fans at home.

On Tuesday, John Legend followed suit, streaming an at-home concert on Instagram while seated at his piano in a bathrobe with his collection of Grammys on display in the background. John Legend encouraged his viewers to practice social distancing and stay home if they could, and to donate to food banks. (Both of the singers’ performances were part of a campaign by the World Health Organization and Global Citizen.)

Their virtual concerts followed a week of many canceled and postponed tour dates and music festivals.

Chrissy Teigen, a model and TV personality who is also John Legend’s wife, situated herself atop the piano and provided occasional commentary while her husband serenaded his Instagram followers. Celebrities including Shonda Rhimes, Yvette Noel-Schure (Beyoncé’s publicist, who has also worked with John Legend) and Katie Couric expressed their enthusiasm in the comments.

Singing his song “Stay With You,” he changed the track’s closing lines to fit the mood: “Til the coronavirus declines, I’ll stay home with you.”

A couple hours before hosting his first live stream performance on Tuesday, Ben Gibbard, the frontman of Death Cab for Cutie, said he was feeling “nervous and excited as if it was a real show.” Mr. Gibbard plans to host daily live performances from his home studio in Seattle for at least the next two weeks, he said in a phone interview.

“This is the kind of things teenagers are doing all the time, so for me at 43, it’s the first time I’ve got a webcam up and guitar in my hand,” he said. “I feel in a couple hours I’ll be catching up with the rest of the YouTube world.”

New York bars and restaurants are delivering co*cktails.

New York City bars that are already offering takeout co*cktails, or plan to soon, include: PDT, Attaboy, Middle Branch and the NoMad in Manhattan; and Grand Army, Hunky Dory, Leyenda in Brooklyn. Most bars are working with food-delivery services like Caviar, but many co*cktails can be ordered by phone or email for pickup.

Jeff Bell, an owner of PDT, was one of the first. He began selling to-go drinks on Monday, including bar favorites like a mezcal mule and the Benton’s old-fashioned in sizes from individual, one-drink flasks ($12) to growlers that contain up to 12 drinks ($120). Each order comes with tater tots.

Hunky Dory began its takeout service with Irish coffees, and will offer its most popular co*cktail, a mezcal-turmeric drink called a smoky mountain songbird. Attaboy’s penicillin, a twist on a whiskey sour, will be available.

Most bars will mix classic drinks like martinis and Negronis, all-spirit co*cktails that have a long shelf life, but there is an opportunity to use perishable goods that would otherwise go to waste. co*cktail deliveries offer financial help for scrambling businesses and employees as customers practice social distancing.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for us to get people hours and keep them employed,” said Nathan McCarley-O’Neill, the bar director at the NoMad.

Some owners, however, hold no illusions that the allowance represents anything more than a stopgap. “We don’t think we’ll be allowed to do this very long,” said Sam Ross, an owner of Attaboy. “The impression we all get is this is just a Band-Aid on the wound right now. We feel a full shutdown is coming.”

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A major golf tournament is postponed.

The remaining golf majors on the schedule are the United States Open in mid-June and the British Open in mid-July. The United States Golf Association, which conducts the United States Open, said in a statement Tuesday that it would “continue to hold the dates” for its tournament scheduled for June 18 to 21 at the Winged Foot Golf Club in Westchester County, N.Y., as it monitors the recommendations of government authorities. The U.S.G.A. said it would do the same for this year’s United States Women’s Open, scheduled for June 4 to 7 in Texas.

Last week, the L.P.G.A. postponed its first major of the season, the ANA Inspiration, which was to be held in Southern California from April 2 to 5. The L.P.G.A. has also canceled several other events.

On Tuesday, the PGA Tour canceled four more events through May 10 — the RBC Heritage in Hilton Head, S.C., the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte and AT&T Byron Nelson in Dallas. The tour had already last week canceled its signature event, the Players Championship, as well as three other upcoming tournaments.

The P.G.A. Championship was first contested in 1916 and has been held every year continuously since 1919, except for 1943 when the event was not played because of World War II.

Yes, it’s OK to take a walk.

On Monday, seven counties around Silicon Valley announced a shelter-at-home order that would take effect on Tuesday. San Francisco’s mayor, London N. Breed, issued an order for city residents to stay at home except for “essential needs,” like medicine or food, but made an exemption for “engaging in outdoor activity, such as walking, hiking, or running provided that you maintain at least six feet of social distancing.”

In New York, too, the mayor is weighing a shelter-in-place order, and it is uncertain how much exercise might be allowed under the plan.

For now, however, New Yorkers are still relying on walks through the city as a form of mental cleansing.

Authors like Walt Whitman, Hart Crane and Alfred Kazin have long celebrated walks in New York as a tonic against despair or anxiety, said Stephen Miller, the author of the 2014 book, “Walking New York: Reflections of American Writers From Walt Whitman to Teju Cole.”

In the current state of anxiety, even short walks make a giant difference.

People looking to get out of the house for a jaunt should at least take extra steps to maintain their personal space cushion, said Carolyn C. Cannuscio, a social epidemiologist at the Center for Public Health Initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania.

“We’re trying to avoid face-to-face contact with other people, so all of our decisions should be made with that in mind,” Ms. Cannuscio said. “I would suggest that people walk at times that streets are less busy, walk in locations where there are fewer people and there’s an opportunity to spread out, and don’t stop and talk with all your neighbors.”

Before each stroll, she said, “scout it out. Peek out the window and see if there are lots of people on the street. If there are, then wait until later. For people who need to pick up their medication at the pharmacy, or need to get food, if you get to the store and it’s crowded, turn around and go home, then go back later.”

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Cardi B riffs on the coronavirus and an anthem is born.

Days later, a Brooklyn D.J. and producer who goes by DJ iMarkkeyz saw his fans tagging him in the video’s comments with a familiar request: “you know what to do.” (iMarkkeyz is known for “remixing” memes and viral clips.) And thus the uber-timely “Coronavirus Remix” was born. Seemingly overnight, it has gone vir — well, you know. Both artists said proceeds from the remix will be donated.

Trevor Noah and other stars remind young people: We’re ‘alone together.’

Spearheaded by MTV and other ViacomCBS companies, the #AloneTogether campaign was conceived on Saturday as executives began to notice “pictures of kids on Bourbon Street, being let out of colleges, going to bars” and concluded that “there’s a crisis in terms of young people understanding their role in this,” said Jacqueline Parkes, the chief marketing officer for ViacomCBS entertainment & youth brands.

A text chain with 10 people quickly expanded. ViacomCBS employees, who had been required to work from home since Thursday, used their laptops and phones to drum up TikTok and Instagram-ready designs for the campaign within six hours.

The conceit was simple — bright colors and clean Helvetica font imploring young people to help slow the spread of the virus by staying home — but “the production quality is not nearly as important as the message right now,” Ms. Parkes said.

Working with the nonprofit P.S.A. group Ad Council, ViacomCBS began pushing out the message on its channels and also on social media, where it was shared by Trevor Noah of “The Daily Show,” Catelynn Baltierra of “Teen Mom” and the accounts for “Jersey Shore,” “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and “Broad City.”

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Resort islands in the U.S. are barring outsiders.

It was a highly unusual step for the 375 year-round residents to take, considering their economic dependence on the wealthy summer traffic, but residents noted that the island has extremely limited medical facilities.

And in North Carolina, officials in Dare County, which includes much of the Outer Banks, announced on Tuesday that they would be establishing checkpoints to the county and would turn away visitors. With its hundreds of miles of Atlantic beaches, the Outer Banks draw millions of tourists every year, breaking records summer after summer.

“While there are currently no individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Dare County, officials weighed the potential benefits for community health along with the tremendous impacts these restrictions have on our community,” the county said in a statement.

Seventeen cases of the coronavirus have been reported in Maine, with none in North Haven.

But residents expressed worry at an annual town meeting that seasonal residents and travelers could carry the virus to the island, which has a single clinic that is not licensed or operated as an emergency medical facility and a lone nurse practitioner.

The barrier of water has often been considered insurance to stave off a disease, though some observers have expressed skepticism at the ability of islands to stop a rampantly spreading virus. Any seal is bound to be imperfect, they argue, and these measures are likely to only delay the inevitable.

M.L.B. teams commit $30 million to support ballpark employees.

Manfred raised the issue of pay for ballpark employees during a conference call with club owners on Monday, seeking a uniform, league-wide gesture by the teams beyond their individual plans.

The issue is somewhat complicated because some game-day employees report to individual teams, and others to outside companies the teams hire. In a statement, Manfred said that the timing of teams’ specific plans would vary “to coordinate with state and local laws as well as collective bargaining obligations in an effort to maximize the benefits realized by each group of employees.”

The league is still working with the players’ union on adjustments to service time, bonuses and other player-compensation issues. Once those issues are resolved, M.L.B. plans to work out details on payment for minor leaguers, who are not part of the union, during the shutdown.

After pledging a combined $30 million to one displaced segment of the industry, it stands to reason that the league will make a good-faith effort to help minor leaguers, who are almost always notoriously underpaid.

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Spring cruises look unlikely to sail.

Here’s what passengers can expect:

No U.S. sailings before April 11

All major cruise companies, including Carnival Cruise Lines, the world’s largest, with 100 ships sailing under 10 brands; Norwegian Cruise Lines; MSC Cruises; and Royal Caribbean, are, at a minimum, suspending sailings from American ports until at least April 11.

Virgin Voyages, a new cruise endeavor targeted at millennials and part of Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, announced it would postpone the launch of its first ship, Scarlet Lady, from March to July.

Spring cruises to Europe are being canceled

Mid-March through April is the time of year many United States-based ships typically head across the Atlantic to begin the European cruising season. That season looks unlikely to go forward. The C.D.C. has classified Europe as an area with “Widespread Sustained Transmission” of Covid-19 and has given it a Level 3 Warning, asking citizens to avoid nonessential travel. That is the same warning level applied to China, South Korea and Iran. The State Department has restricted all but United States citizens and legal permanent residents from returning from Europe. And countries have instituted lockdowns to prevent the spread of the virus.

Viking said it was temporarily suspending operations of river and ocean cruises, for embarkations taking place between March 12 and April 30. MSC Cruises has canceled trips departing from France and Italy through April 25.

Loosening cancellation policies to continue

Cruise lines have been notoriously strict with change and cancellation policies but are loosening up considerably in the face of the pandemic. Norwegian, MSC Cruises, Silversea Cruises, Royal Caribbean and Seabourn are letting people delay their sailings, cancel within days of a trip or substitute another passenger for the one originally booked (usually a no-no).

The companies have been increasing their incentives to woo affected passengers onto later trips. Celebrity cruise lines, for example will provide a 100 percent refund or 125 percent credit on a future cruise. Princess guests who were scheduled to depart between March 12 and 25 can choose either a 100 percent credit toward a future cruise plus credit toward another future cruise worth 125 percent of their original sailing, or a full refund plus an additional full credit for a new cruise.

Policies vary by company and by scheduled sailing, and continue to change, so travelers should contact their travel agent or cruise company.

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