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We should stay physically distant but socially close.

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El desayuno en los tiempos del coronavirus

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Washington DC #PainttheStoreFronts

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Washington DC #PainttheStoreFronts

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A street artist called Msale has taken it upon himself to create giant murals bringing public health messages directly to the overcrowded Mathare slum in Nairobi. With half a million people living in such 'a squeezed area' social distancing is quite impossible to achieve, says Msale, so he is providing information for people on how to keep safe in the 'simplest, clearest' way he knows

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The coronavirus murals trying to keep Kenya's slums safe - video

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A street artist called Msale has taken it upon himself to create giant murals bringing public health messages directly to the overcrowded Mathare slum in Nairobi.

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A few days after DC restaurants were forced to shutdown for dine-in service, Busboys and Poets in Anacostia had a break-in. Someone threw a brick through the window and stole an empty cash register. Afterward, owner Andy Shallal had the storefront boarded up with plywood and painted black.

"Then I got this idea: Basically I have a canvas in front of me, and why not use it for something positive instead of getting upset and angry?," Shallal says.

So, he painted "Busboys [heart] Anacostia."

The outpouring of gratitude and support from the community was overwhelming, and it inspired Shallal to bring art and uplifting messages to darkened businesses in more neighborhoods.

"I'm walking around, people are crossing the street from each other. People are not looking face to face with one another. There's this sense of isolation mentally and physically that's happening. I just feel that sometimes you've got to poke them a little bit and go, 'Oh, I'm still alive. I'm still here,'" Shallal says. He also believes the art will help to discourage vandalism and unwanted graffiti. "People are much more respectful when a space has already been tagged."

Shallal, who considers himself "an artist first," continued by painting the Busboys windows on 14th Street with the message: "In dark times shine your light brighter."

Shallal also called up celebrity chef José Andrés and offered to paint a couple of his high-profile Penn Quarter restaurants, Oyamel and China Chilcano. Today, he'll be working on the Diner in Adams Morgan with the message: "Don't count the days, make the days count." Next up, Tryst and the Coupe.

In addition to picking up a paint brush himself, Shallal is paying artists out of his own pocket to help with the murals. He sees it as a way to support artists who may have lost gigs and still want to showcase their work-while social distancing. He's also encouraging others follow suit using the hashtag #PaintTheStorefronts.

"We sent it out to people to say, 'Paint your own!' You don't have to wait for us to come and paint it for you."

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Instead of Boarding Up, Businesses Are Painting Their Storefronts With Uplifting Messages

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A few days after DC restaurants were forced to shutdown for dine-in service, Busboys and Poets in Anacostia had a break-in. Someone threw a brick through the window and stole an empty cash register. Afterward, owner Andy Shallal had the storefront boarded up with plywood and painted black.

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From Norway to Colorado, street artists depict a world of masks and hand-washing (and toilet paper). One recurrent theme: a deep appreciation of health care workers.

"The Lovers," by the Norwegian artist Pobel, in Bryne, Norway. Credit... Pobel

Street art is the ultimate visual source of social commentary and the pandemic has lit a fire under the feet of muralists around the world.

"Soap Bear," by the San Francisco-based artist Fnnch. Credit... Andrew Rettman

"Hippie Bear," also by Fnnch. Credit... Andrew Rettman

Some works are humorous, even playful, like those done by the San Francisco-based artist Fnnch, whose paste-up images include his signature honey bears wearing face masks, and bright blue soap-dispenser bears, encouraging people to wash their hands. They can be found all over the city, in neighborhoods like Inner Richmond and Cow Hollow, on sidewalks and mailboxes. Other artists' works are more serious, highlighting, for example, the importance of health care workers.

From Norway to Colorado, here are some places where Covid-19-inspired street art has cropped up.

In March, the artist Pobel returned to his home in Norway after traveling in the Peruvian jungle and found a mandatory lockdown. He was struck by people wearing masks, he said.

That's how the idea for " The Lovers," a mural of a young couple wearing bright blue face masks, was born. He spray-painted the image on a concrete wall on the main road in Bryne, after making a stencil drawing on cardboard.

"There's a beautiful lamp above it, so at nighttime, it really lights up," he said. His inspiration stemmed from hope. "Even though everyone has gone through struggles and hard times, there is still heart and love and compassion," he said.

In Bergen, the street artist Pyritt painted a woman clad in a traditional Norwegian costume called a bunad, wearing a gold face mask. He named it " May 2020," a nod to the country's May 17 Constitution Day, which is celebrated with parades and has not been canceled since World War II. "A bunad is a very important part of the collective self-image," said Christer Holm, who represents the artist, noting that this year there is a high probability that the celebrations won't happen.

Pyritt has since painted another mural on April 19 called "Contagious," an image of a girl kissing a bottle of Corona beer.

AFK, another Bergen-based artist, did a nostalgic paste-up called " Hug the World " on a wall under a city bridge: Two girls hug the Earth bathed in a pink hue. Near the painting, the artist wrote: "When you can't control what's happening, challenge yourself to control the way you respond to what's happening. That's where the power is."
For a virtual look at the artists' works, visit their Instagram pages: Pobel, Pyritt Artworks and AFK Artwork.

On April 10, the Denver-based artist Austin Zucchini-Fowler painted an arresting, multicolored "Healthcare Hero" mural on the wall of an abandoned building on Colfax Avenue. The mural shows a winged health care worker wearing a face mask and a pair of red boxing gloves.

The mural, which took fewer than 10 hours to paint, "has resonated with the health care community," said the artist, who added that he's seen many medical professionals taking photos in front of it. He used a mixture of spray and acrylic paints, including Seurat-like pointillistic dots throughout.

Gov. Jared Polis enacted a stay-at-home order in Denver on March 26, and Mr. Zucchini-Fowler said he wanted to be proactive in his community during this period of social distancing.

"The participation from the community was really great, both the process of making it and the interaction (from passers-by)," he said. Since then, he's started selling prints of his work for $30, donating a print to a different hospital around the United States for every 10 sold, and has plans for more coronavirus-inspired street art around the city.

You can view "Healthcare Hero" and Mr. Zucchini-Fowler's latest mural, "Frontline Fighter," on his Instagram channel.

After a visit to his local supermarket on March 12, the Charlotte-based artist Darion Fleming realized that there would soon be no sanitizers anywhere: a thought that inspired his work " Pure'll Gold." "I thought it would be a funny idea to see gold spilling out of a Purell bottle," he said, and added the words "Available Nowhere" on the bottle.

He painted the mural on a quiet residential building on North Davidson Street. It took him eight 10-hour days to finish it. "This wasn't a commissioned piece, and everything was on my dime because I wanted to do something for the community to enjoy in serious times," he said, adding that the project cost him around $500.

Since then, he has more than doubled the number of his Instagram followers and turned the area into a buzzworthy spot. "It could be around for a very long time, or when all of this blows up, I might cover it up and paint something else. That's the cool thing about public art, nothing's really permanent," he said.

Understand Vaccine and Mask Mandates in the U.S.

Vaccine rules.On Aug. 23, the Food and Drug Administration granted full approval to Pfizer-BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine for people 16 and up, paving the way for an increase in mandates in both the public and private sectors. Private companies have been increasingly mandating vaccines for employees. Such mandates are legally allowed and have been upheld in court challenges.

Mask rules. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in July recommended that all Americans, regardless of vaccination status, wear masks in indoor public places within areas experiencing outbreaks, a reversal of the guidance it offered in May. See where the C.D.C. guidance would apply, and where states have instituted their own mask policies. The battle over masks has become contentious in some states, with some local leaders defying state bans.

College and universities. More than 400 colleges and universities are requiring students to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Almost all are in states that voted for President Biden.

Schools. Both California and New York City have introduced vaccine mandates for education staff. A survey released in August found that many American parents of school-age children are opposed to mandated vaccines for students, but were more supportive of mask mandates for students, teachers and staff members who do not have their shots.

Hospitals and medical centers. Many hospitals and major health systems are requiring employees to get a Covid-19 vaccine, citing rising caseloads fueled by the Delta variant and stubbornly low vaccination rates in their communities, even within their work force.

New York City. Proof of vaccination is required of workers and customers for indoor dining, gyms, performances and other indoor situations, although enforcement does not begin until Sept. 13. Teachers and other education workers in the city's vast school system will need to have at least one vaccine dose by Sept. 27, without the option of weekly testing. City hospital workers must also get a vaccine or be subjected to weekly testing. Similar rules are in place for New York State employees.

At the federal level. The Pentagon announced that it would seek to make coronavirus vaccinations mandatory for the country's 1.3 million active-duty troops "no later" than the middle of September. President Biden announced that all civilian federal employees would have to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to regular testing, social distancing, mask requirements and restrictions on most travel.

To view "Pure'll Gold" virtually, visit Mr. Fleming's Instagram page.

The Berlin-based artist Eme Freethinker wanted to make a statement about greed during the crisis. "I was thinking about what I should paint all night, and was laughing a lot about it, and in the morning I told my son that I was going to paint Gollum from "The Lord of the Rings"with a toilet paper roll, with the words 'Mein Schatz' ('My Precious')," he said.

The original mural in Mauerpark (a public park in the Prenzlauer Berg district) was painted on March 19, but has since been covered with artwork by others, but can be seen here, on the artist's Instagram account.

He has painted several more, including his latest, Gollum and Scrat, the squirrel from the movie "Ice Age," who has now nabbed the toilet paper roll. While the works have attracted a lot of attention, he doesn't know how many more virus-themed paintings he will create in the future, noting that he doesn't want to exploit the theme too much.
"Gollum and Scrat" can be seen virtually on the artist's Instagram account, Eme Freethinker.

The Mexican-American artist Mauricio Ramirez splits his time between Chicago and Milwaukee, Wis., where his family lives, and has been painting murals since he was 16.

"My news feed was filled with Covid-19 and I just got sick of it," he said. He had the desire to create something positive for health care workers. "I just wanted to let them know they're appreciated."

He chose a mixed-used building with a pristine masonry brick facade in the residential neighborhood Lincoln Village as the canvas for his 15-foot tall, 30-foot-wide work, " Frontline Heroes." "The building is across the street from a basilica in an area that looks a little bit like Rome, and some of my family members have been baptized there," he said.

The striking mural with geometric waves shows a nurse wearing a mask in a prayer-like pose, with the colors of the Puerto Rican and Mexican flags in the background. Mr. Ramirez started the mural on April 9, finished it in two days, and said that everyone on his Instagram post has been tagging a health care worker.

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Street Art Confronts the Pandemic (Published 2020)

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From Norway to Colorado, street artists depict a world of masks and hand-washing (and toilet paper). One recurrent theme: a deep appreciation of health care workers. Street art is the ultimate visual source of social commentary and the pandemic has lit a fire under the feet of muralists around the world.

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New York City

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la señal de auxilio desde balcones y ventanas donde a través de un trapo rojo, se escucha el grito silencioso de ¡ayuda tenemos hambre!

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"Zárt Kapuk" or closed gates in Hungarian.

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"Tackling a social calamity is not like fighting a war which works best when a leader can use top-down power to order everyone to do what the leader wants — with no need for consultation.

"In contrast, what is needed for dealing with a social calamity is participatory governance and alert public discussion."

- Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen