How The Seattle Times Has Dealt With the Coronavirus Pandemic

Ms. Flores, who has been executive editor since May and has worked at The Times for more than 25 years, has been thinking a lot about what the paper will tell readers if someone on its staff falls ill. She wonders how to explain that the newsroom is staying safe, and trying to keep the community safe, so that people are not scared to encounter her reporters. In case the office closes down, she is making plans to move half the paper’s limited supply of protective gear — the masks, goggles and gloves that, until now, had sat in a supply closet in case the annual May Day parade gets too wild and the police use tear gas — to a staff member’s detached garage, where someone can retrieve it even if the home is quarantined.

She said she was glad that her bosses at The Seattle Times Company, which also owns The Yakima Herald-Republic and The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, were the ones who had to worry about the possibility that the printing plant would have to close.

“We have uttered the words,” she said. “That’s a scary proposition.”

Ms. Cornwell has a can of La Colombe coffee and a dozen other drinks on her desk. They have been accumulating since the first case was confirmed in January, and she simply hasn’t taken the time to throw them away. She spends her time ping-ponging between nursing centers that have reported illnesses, the newsroom and the daily briefings at the Kirkland center, where relatives of the residents peer into windows and meet with administrators, desperate for information on the condition of their loved ones.

“The facilities have said, ‘Well, if someone wants to leave, they can,’ but there’s a lot of confusion among the residents,” Ms. Cornwell said. She added that some people required too much care for their families to take them home.

Her own mother had spent time in an assisted-living facility after suffering a stroke. Ms. Cornwell recently had a nightmare in which her mother was trapped inside and Ms. Cornwell couldn’t get her out.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/business/media/coronavirus-seattle-times.html