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Let's partner for all of it. Learn more at edwardjones.com. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning.

Musically introduced to us this morning by Kelly Ousterman of St. Louis. This pandemic is very much a mixed bag depending upon where you live. New cases down in some places, up in others.

Many places reopened, other places still closed. Uncertainty about the future still lingering just about everywhere. This is your life in the strangest of times as Mo Rocca will report in our cover story.

Plexiglass barriers have been popping up all over. This is your life as the country returns to normal-ish. Have you seen anything that approximates this? Not even close. Not even close?

Not even close. Nothing like this. It's a frenzy almost. Coming up on Sunday morning, old lessons about the new normal. Even in the face of live performance shutdowns, some of our top musicians are saying don't stop the music as Lee Cowan will show us. Pandemic or not, Jon Bon Jovi hasn't stopped writing songs that speak to our times. No matter who you are, no matter where you live, we experience COVID-19 together.

When he can do what you do, you do what you can. Jewel has been pretty busy too. Music's meant to heal people. How a virus became an instrument of musical inspiration.

Ahead on Sunday morning. Audiobooks are experiencing a boom during the COVID pandemic with David Poe. We'll hear all about it. I could for the first time pick up a book. From the moment the books on tape became books on phone, audiobooks have become wildly popular with the listeners who buy them.

Oh no. And with the celebrities who record them. You don't need to dress up or take a shower. It's perfect for me because I barely do either one except when I'm appearing on CBS.

I know what it feels like to work for someone else. Later on Sunday morning, the golden age of audiobooks. Mark Phillips reveals the role masks have played through history. Luke Burbank toasts the virtual cocktail party. Plus Jim Gaffigan, a vigorous round of exercise with Nancy Giles and more on this last Sunday morning of the month, May 31st, 2020.

We'll be right back. . Masks, social distancing, and a scattering of reopened businesses. This is your life as the coronavirus pandemic drags on.

But is it also fated to be your future? Our cover story is reported by Mo Rocca. If you're looking for a window on the new normal, it may very well be made of plexiglass. How's business? Business is booming.

It's absolutely insanely busy. Russ Miller manages tap plastics in San Leandro, California. I've never in 40 years of doing this, I've never seen anything like this. Miller says as soon as the number of COVID-19 cases exploded, so did sales of the transparent acrylic barriers. First customers were the large grocery stores, plastic sheets between the customer and the cashier. Already plexiglass barriers are popping up in reception areas, office cafeterias, hair and nail salons.

Which raises the question, as we all begin to emerge from our pandemic isolation, will we find ourselves still separated from each other? I got contacted by a nursery school and they wanted ones to put between the kids who are sleeping on the floor during nap time. Does that make you kind of sad?

I have four kids. This is just one more problem that the kids have to deal with at school that is just sad. It's just not good. One of the first times the phrase the new normal appeared in print was in 1918, just after the end of World War One. And with every cataclysmic event since, there have been predictions about how life will change. This one's no exception.

Every cashier is going to want protection. Becoming part of the new normal? Yes, part of the new normal, unfortunately. Unfortunately? Yeah, I just, you know, I'm an optimist.

I want to be like I was. Behaviors change, but they always change for shorter periods than we anticipate or than a lot of people expect. Adam Alter is a psychology professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.

He points out that the phrase has been much used during the last two decades. Here is the question, how do we find ourselves here? Here is the question that must be asked is what happened Friday, the new normal? We just aren't quite sure yet what the new normal is. This may very well be the new normal. Notably, the 2008 financial crisis. People said, you know, this is the new normal, you're going to have to be much more careful about your spending. It was also about saying to consumers, banks and other institutions will be forced to behave better in future. And so with luck, we'll avert future crises like this one.

But less than 10 years later, the government loosened the major financial protections. Change didn't last. And I think we'll see the same thing after the pandemic as well. I think when you're in the midst of an event, it's concrete, it's very present. It's all that surrounds you.

It takes up your whole attentional field. But I think as it passes, the vast majority of our behaviors will return to the way they were. But some changes will stick. Can we even remember what it was like to fly before 9-11? We instituted a whole lot of different policies. The way we travel changed, the way we entered buildings changed.

Security in general was much tighter in every respect. Not that there hasn't been a lot of grumbling about the long lines and privacy intrusions. Adam Alter says many Americans are less welcoming of new norms that feel imposed. A lot of people just say, you know what, I've got plenty of freedom.

I'm good. There are other people in the population who I think are more naturally resistant to being told pretty much anything. You could say, don't do this thing that will protect thousands of people, or don't do this thing that will keep you safe. And they say, don't tell me what to do.

That's not something that I'm willing to accept. Now, it's not that humans aren't capable of change over relatively short periods of time. Think about this. 20 years ago, almost no one had a smartphone. And now... 75% of American adults say they can reach their phones without moving their feet 24 hours a day, which means their phones are either under their pillows or on their nightstand table.

They're in their pockets. On average, he says, Americans will spend 15 years of their lives looking at their smartphones. Eesh. Had Steve Jobs strode out onto the stage with the first iPhone and said, all of you will buy this device and start using it now, it probably would not have worked out so well.

It would not. If the government had said, for example, everyone is mandated to buy a device, the attitudes would have been very, very, very different. Whatever the new normal ends up looking like, Alter says some people may actually begin pining for lockdown life.

As soon as you're being forced to move around again, I think we'll start to say, well, remember when we didn't, we could just sit on the couch. Now, Lydia, I'm hearing birds chirping. Is that a sound effect that you added? No, it's just, yeah, for you. No, isn't this beautiful? Restaurateur and cookbook author Lydia Bastianich says she hopes there are elements of our life and isolation that will be part of our new normal. You know, the planes are not flying overhead as much.

The birds are singing. Maybe, maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I kind of like it. She says this period reminds her of her childhood in Istria, once a part of Italy. This is how I grew up, you know, and the seasons what we ate.

And, you know, I did help grandma in the gardens, harvest the potatoes, the beans, the peas, whatever, the phallus, whatever was in season. While Bastianich hopes that out of this, people will continue to cook at home, she's also a businesswoman with restaurants in New York and beyond. She knows that eateries, bars and stores can only reopen if social distancing becomes a norm, at least for the foreseeable future. There are already apps out there where the client can log in to the restaurant's menu and order directly. The waiter doesn't have to take the order. The order goes in the kitchen. The waiter will just serve it with the mask, the gloves, change the gloves with each serving.

It's just a precaution that needs to be taken. First time you're really dealing with your server is when the food is delivered. Exactly.

And I think the communication will happen a lot on the computer. Do people need restaurants? Absolutely. Restaurants. The word restaurant is from the word restore.

A refuge, if you will, of travelers, of people going, meeting new people. So restaurants I think will always be part of society. So you heard it here, the new normal will include restaurants. Yes, absolutely. I have no doubt.

But that new normal may include barriers between tables made of, yes, plexiglass. I love starting conversations with the next table. I know. I know.

We are social creatures. I get it. I get it. But you're going to have to calm yourself down a little bit. You're going to have to sort of pull that in. So you have to follow the rules, Mo. You have to follow the rules. You hear me?

It turns out that wearing a mask during a pandemic has a long history behind it. Mark Phillips offers us a crash course. I guess the first question is, do we need these things during this interview? Well, I would say no, because we're appropriately distanced, more than two meters apart, and we're also outside. All right. Let's take them off.

I think we should. My glasses are fucking up already. The man behind the mask is Mark Honigsbaum, a medical historian, author of books like The Pandemic Century. He knows from masks, going back to their first known medical use during the Black Death, the bubonic plague of the Middle Ages that killed roughly half of Europe's population.

And those were some masks. Everybody probably is familiar with the classic image of the beaked physician, the plague doctor. That the plague doctors looked like ravens about to pick on the bones of the dead is an image that sticks with you. The masks may have been useless against the disease, which was carried by rats and fleas, but they did actually serve a purpose. They would wear this beak and then we put lavender in the beak as a way of acting as a barrier to the noxious vapors that were thought to spread this dreadful contagion. So it wasn't just that the world smelled or the people dying of the plague with their boils and everything else stunk. This was thought to have medicinal purpose.

Well, it was thought to block or somehow counteract these bad odors. The idea that disease could be carried in the air endured for centuries, but it wasn't actually proven until the Great Manchurian Plague of 1910-11, an outbreak that killed around 60,000 people. What happened in China in the winter of 1910 was a young Chinese doctor called Wu Liente was practicing in Manchuria with a French colleague and Wu observed that many of the patients seemed to have a disease that transmitted very rapidly between them. And he hypothesized that it wasn't being spread by the usual plague flea route, but by respiratory droplets.

So Wu and his staff wore masks. Long story short, they didn't catch pneumonic plague, whereas the French doctor who he worked with did and died as a result. French doctor who did not wear the mask. He didn't wear the mask.

He dismissed it. I suppose there could have been an element of who is this sort of, you know, presumptuous young Chinese doctor to tell me I know better, right? And that East-West divide has endured. The mask has become commonplace in Asian cities during the flu season.

It has had its moments in the West. During the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918-19, San Francisco had a mask-wearing public ordinance. In San Francisco, people were actually fined five dollars if they were caught by a policeman in public not wearing a mask.

These days, the divide is more left-right than East-West. The non-mask wearer in chief may be living out two cultural fantasies. Studies show men are less likely to wear face masks than women. Keep your hands up and your mouth shut and nobody will get hurt. The other attitude may come from the movies.

You're the Durango kid, eh? In Hollywood's version of the Old West, masks were for bad guys. You might as well put that gun down and take off your mask. The mask has come a long way, not just in terms of social acceptability, but technically. Those Chinese doctors in Manchuria made theirs out of bandages. Surgical masks since then were also made from woven cloth.

Better than nothing, but not as good as this. The now-coveted N95 mask, molded, not woven, out of synthetic fibers which filter out more of the virus. It's a mask that owes its inspiration to legendary industrial designer Sarah Little-Turnbull, whose work on the first molded bra cup for 3M in the 60s morphed in her mind into a medical mask, and you can see why. Now the face mask is morphing again, from medical to fashion necessity, along with the coronavirus it has arrived. You know, once you see retailers, clothing companies, think there's a marketing opportunity, I think they'll catch on. The coronavirus has altered just about every aspect of life, and that includes the commercials on TV.

Anna Warner has a message about our sponsors. Remember these commercials? The ones showing fans at crowded football games.

And we'll be here when it happens, because we're fans. Or focused around cities packed with people. Pepsi's more than okay! Or with celebrities delivering light-hearted messages. You might call them the before coronavirus commercials. Ads that definitely don't work now.

Just ask the people at KFC who launched this finger lickin' good campaign just before the pandemic began. We're here for a reason, and it's bigger than selling cars. Ford Motor Company was one of the first to pivot to a new style of ads. Matt Van Dyke is director of U.S. marketing.

Talking about our latest model and features and benefits, it just isn't relevant right now. So rather than marketing cars, the company offered payment relief to customers. Then Ford spoke of its commitment to building respirators, ventilators, and face shields. How do you support America?

How do you support your customers in their time of need? Advertising has shifted during crises before. Poster ads in World War II emphasized patriotism. I am an American. I am an American. And commercials running after 9-11 spoke of community.

I am an American. So during this pandemic, Walmart told customers we're here for you in ads featuring its employees. Samsung promised we'll get through this together. And Uber showed people staying home in an ad that thanked them for not riding with Uber. If you're not selling a product, what is your advertising doing for you?

Senior editor at Ad Age, Janine Poggi. Your advertising right now is really keeping you top of mind. So when people are ready to return to movie theaters and ready to go travel and ready to go to the mall, you're going to be in a bad mood.

And if you're ready to go to the mall, you will be in their mind. Not everyone has continued to advertise. As of April, television ad spending had fallen 41 percent. And of those still advertising, 92 percent adjusted their messages. And those commercials featuring cities?

They had to change too. It feels unnatural to not be in motion. An agency donor sent a message of hope to fellow Detroit residents. It came from the heart. It came from a place of wanting to help. Because here, we don't stop in the name of fear.

Here, we stop in the name of love. Brain strategist Alex Demuth came up with the idea. While we're not able to make masks or ventilators out of our commercials, we can use the work that we do to help speak to people.

His colleague, director of content Zeke Anders, shot the ad. This is really what I did when I filmed. I just sort of drove around.

Socially distanced with a single camera from his car. To be there, it was very hypnotic and very emotional in a sense. And I just hope that that sense and that spirit of Detroit comes through. And some familiar voices are delivering new, powerfully different messages.

We are at war. These public service announcements popped up online beginning in March from actor Matthew McConaughey. It felt right to just maybe just throw some hope out there at a time when people were sort of in shock.

McConaughey has worked on writing and producing a series of six PSAs. This one aimed at motivating people to stay home during the war against the coronavirus. Staying home is not a retreat. It's the most brave and aggressive weapon we have against this enemy. I had quite a few people come chest puffed up and go, I didn't think of it that way. You know, I didn't think of it being a strong choice.

I thought of it as a defeatist move to stay in. And then now I understand that this is a different kind of enemy that I'm here to battle. Another takes a lighter approach. It's high time we catch this killer, because we got more living to do. With McConaughey creating the character Bobby Bandito.

I remember stay at home, but if you got to go, strap it on like so. If I could be another voice to put that out and somebody else could go, oh, I didn't listen to so-and-so, but I like that McConaughey told me, that's a win and that's better for them. That's better for me.

That's better for all of us. His latest production, a PSA he calls, it's about us. What is the message you want people to listen to that you really want them to hear? It's about us. It's not about politics. The narrative started to feel like, well, if you want to go to work, you're on the far right. And if you want to stay home, you're on the far left. And that's just not true. The virus doesn't give a damn who you voted for. I voted for, you know, and we shouldn't care about that right now. We can usually figure it out. What people are saying and what we kind of know analytically and empirically is our strategic situation, our military situation is not being matched up with what we're doing. Follow Intelligence Matters wherever you get your podcasts. Social distancing doesn't need to dry up socializing.

Just ask Luke Burbank. It was almost 100 years ago exactly that every bar in America was shut down, thanks to prohibition. And the wrecking gang leave but a memory of dark brown ale. Back then, brave folks with a thirst for drink flocked to speakeasies. But a century later, when the nation's bars closed again in the grip of a pandemic, a new way to share a drink was born. The virtual cocktail hour. These days, brick and mortar establishments are reopening in places like Memphis. To be able to actually go out and have a drink with a friend, it's amazing.

Cheers. So just pour it right in. But many people continue to gather virtually for safety, to connect with friends in other cities, and maybe most importantly, to delineate when the work from home day has actually ended. The old adage that it's five o'clock somewhere has never seemed more true, I think, in these days, with just the bizarre situation in which we find ourselves, I think a lot of people are concerned that alcohol is kind of starting to play a larger role as well to deal with stress and anxiety, as a lot of people have turned to alcohol for them in the past. Laura Carlson is a food historian and host of the podcast The Feast, who says the modern cocktail hour can be traced back to 1917 and a woman named Clara Bell Walsh. She was a St. Louis socialite and became known for hosting parties that had cocktails. Back in those days, Carlson says, cocktail hours were a chance for mostly rich women to have a drink together at a socially acceptable hour.

A lot of times these were women that were feeling that they were not allowed out of the home to pursue work or other employment or other, say, educational opportunities. These would often be, you almost might say, proto-book clubs where they could discuss, say, intellectual matters. For those looking to throw a proper virtual cocktail party in 2020, Linden Pride and Natalie Hudson have you covered. It's been challenging, but also kind of fun to adapt the business model in a way that we never thought we would have to do before. Pride and Hudson co-owned Dante in New York City, which was voted best bar in the world in 2019. But when the pandemic hit, they had to rethink things. The second day that we had had to transition to the to-go cocktails, I was standing in Dante and there's buckets and bottles of cocktails and people scribbling down recipes and trying to work out how to create, you know, two ounces into 55 ounces into a large vat so that we could bottle them and it's felt like mad science.

They've continued serving regulars with pre-made cocktails to go, including their world-famous Negroni. I've got the supplies here, which I was curious to try. Let's use the larger side of your... I like that, I like how you're thinking. Okay, I'm going with the one ounce. Fill that all the way to the top.

Okay. Into the shaker. Now we're going to use the sweet vermouth. How much vermouth am I putting in? The same amount?

Three quarters. Into the shaker. With now three quarters of an ounce of Campari, I'm going to have you put some ice into your shaker. Okay.

Either Weight Watchers or AA. I can't decide which one I'm going to join after this, but... The goal now is to stir the ice in the drink. I think you're almost there. Oh, whoops.

I lost about a third. Okay, cheers. Cheers.

Oh, that is delicious. Armed with the perfect drink. Hi, you guys. I was ready to throw the perfect virtual cocktail party. How about you? What are you having, Katie? I'm drinking rosé with club soda and ice cubes. Nice. The vibe was relaxed and surprisingly fun, even though there were some hiccups. I got a ring light, by the way, because I'm trying to... Whoops, I'm trying to be an influencer. Oh, wow. How's it going so far?

I'd say strong to very strong. These days, the feeling of normalcy seems to be in short supply. So finding some, even briefly, even via video conference, can feel like a real gift. A happy hour in maybe the most literal sense. Cheers, you guys. All TV making aside, it's actually very nice to see you. Cheers.

Cheers, friends. It happened this past week. The loss of a no holds barred and unrepentant warrior against an earlier plague. Author and activist Larry Kramer died Wednesday in New York of pneumonia. An Academy Award nominated screenwriter, Kramer realized early on the threat AIDS posed to the gay community in the early 1980s. He founded the militant group Act Up, known for its acts of civil disobedience on behalf of AIDS research. And he waged a bitter campaign against top federal virus doctor Anthony Fauci. Tony has got his bureaucratic suit on instead of his humanitarian doctor suit on.

Whom he accused of incompetence. Kramer also battled AIDS with his pen, dramatizing the fight in his 1985 play, The Normal Heart. Diagnosed with the virus that causes AIDS himself in 1988, Larry Kramer struggled with multiple ailments in his later years. While never losing his determination and his distinctive voice. The 2011 revival of The Normal Heart won a Tony Award.

Our day will come. He got my attention. And as for that other Tony, Anthony Fauci, he went on to become a sort of friend to Kramer, even helping him get into an experimental drug trial after Kramer's liver transplant in 2001. As Fauci put it to the New York Times, once you got past the rhetoric, you found that Larry Kramer made a lot of sense and that he had a heart of gold.

Larry Kramer was 84. After 11 weeks in quarantine, Jim Gaffigan is looking for a clue, any clue, about where things stand. Last Monday was Memorial Day, the unofficial start to summer. To some Americans, not only was it the start of summer, apparently it was the end of the pandemic. Now, most of us would agree we're not through this yet. But where do we stand? Is this the middle? The end of the beginning? Is there going to be another wave? How many waves?

Do I need a surfboard? We could look to history for hints. The Spanish flu of 1918, which some scientists think started in Kansas.

Sorry, Spain. That had waves, the second being the most deadly. I don't know what that information gives us, except for more fear. The irony is not knowing what comes next is what makes life so difficult.

It's what makes life interesting. But still, it would be nice to know where we stand. Like if you go on vacation, remember vacations? Depending on the length and the destination, you could figure out how to pack for that vacation. Of course, this is not a vacation. But whenever we travel back to normal, wherever that is, we're going to want to be prepared.

Either way, I should find out if any of my pants still fit. Hear all about it. Audiobooks are all the rage among the stay-at-home set. Our David Pogue invites you to lend him your ears. Rumor has it that you might have a little extra time at home these days.

And I've got just the thing to fill it. Listening to books. Now, in the old days, they were called books on tape. They weren't very compact. In fact, even books on compact disc weren't very compact. One Harry Potter book takes 17 of them.

And then this happened. Suddenly, the smartphone made audiobooks so convenient that this happened. Double-digit revenue growth year after year. Over 45,000 new audiobooks recorded last year alone.

A billion dollars in sales. I call my house the house of the world. I call my house the house that books built. It's a nice living. Meet Scott Brick, audiobook superstar.

They call him the man with the golden voice. He's recorded Jurassic Park, In Cold Blood, Alexander Hamilton, and 900 other books. It's not something people do in life to read continuously for eight hours.

No, it's true. People say to me, I'm interested in doing audiobooks. What should I do? And I say, well, grab something at random. Go sit in your closet and just read out loud for eight hours. And if you feel like doing it again tomorrow, give me a call. Earlier this year, we found Brick recording a classic bestseller, The Bible.

Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I've had Lyft drivers say, have we met? I hear your voice. I feel like I know you. I've had women who said, I take you to bed every night with me.

Six minutes from now, one of us would be dead. But nobody's a bigger fan of Scott Brick's narration than best-selling author Brad Meltzer. Scott has an amazing baritone. He makes me sound handsome, more muscular. He makes me sound like I have hair.

There's no such thing as a perfect kiss, but this one's definitely in the running, she murmurs. Do you hear his voice as you're writing? I always put an accent just to see if he can do it. You know, you'll hear someone who has a Bulgarian accent in the book. And you're like, oh, that's an interesting thing to describe. No, that's just me trying to see if Scott Brick can pull it off in the audio book.

These are supposed to be clean room conditions. You know how much time and money you just cost us? He shouts, raging forward. People say, oh, why don't you read your own book? I can't do 30 voices.

I can't do scenes of someone's death and make you come to tears. A good reader can do that. The very best readers come here every year to the Audie Awards, the industry's highest honor.

This year, they were hosted by our own Mo Rocca. Here I am in this fabulous venue and Stephen King is here. Once money, fame and prestige came to the humble audio book.

Oh, no, declared the scarecrow. Plants were like people. It didn't take long for Hollywood to notice.

In the beginning, I had competition, but not anymore. I read the complete autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley, and it was incredible. The story and Lawrence Fishburne's resume is full of credits from Broadway, TV and movies.

You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland. But now he can add audio book narrator. I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying.

I've noticed that more and more recognizable names from Hollywood are starting to record audio books. And I'm just wondering, what's the attraction? Everything. I have been blessed with what I've been told is a wonderful speaking voice. Oh, it's incredible, dude. And so if I can use my speaking voice to tell stories that inspire people, that lift them up, that brighten their day. Wow. That's a gift. Is it acting?

Yes, of course. If I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn't have got me out of books with a wedge. I do remember walking out of the first recording I did as a just a narrator, thinking that was the most taxing physical experience I've ever had. And I've, you know, trekked in Nepal.

Then why didn't you raise any of these? Jesse Eisenberg played Mark Zuckerberg in the movie The Social Network. Mr. Zuckerberg, do I have your full attention?

No, and Lex Luthor in Batman versus Superman. But now he's pushing the definition of an audiobook. And I've been thinking about this criticism, and I'm sorry to say this, but I don't fully agree with you.

He's written a three character audiobook, audio play, audio novel called When You Finish Saving the World, like as a metaphor. It marries my two favorite things more acutely than anything else I could think of, which is, you know, writing fiction and performing. Wow.

And plus, you don't need to dress up or take a shower. It's perfect for me, because I barely do either one except when I'm appearing on CBS. We're deeply honored. Yeah, of course, of course, of course.

I know what it feels like to work for someone else. What's also new about Eisenberg's project is that he wrote it expressly for audio, not for print. It's called an Audible Original. Audible.com is the big kahuna of audiobooks. Is there a prestige value these days to having been a reader for some of these books? Is it like cool?

Yes. I think actors, and I'm certainly one of them who do a lot of Hollywood style movies, I think for a lot of them, you feel like you also want to be involved with the kind of small things that you're a fan of that don't get as much attention. For now, audiobooks are getting a lot of attention. And by the way, you don't have to pay money for them. You can download audiobooks from your library. And one more thing, there's no shame in listening to a book. You're still getting the story. You're getting exactly what the author wanted you to get.

But what about that whole thing about you, Scott, are depriving me of letting my brain imagine what they sound like? I want to do just enough to keep your imagination muscle working. Yeah. My job is to get the author's story across. Right. Job one.

If I've done that, then anything else is gravy. Like many of you these days, our occasional contributor, filmmaker Joshua Seftel, is keeping in touch with his quarantined mom with video. How does it work? I need to clap. What is the clap?

It syncs up the cameras. Should I clap? You can if you want. Hello. How's it going? Pretty good. I'm probably going to be doing my own hair for another month.

How do you feel about that? Safe. Your hair looks good. My neighbor ordered me spray that takes away the gray, so it's around the edge. But you shouldn't see the back. What does it look like in the back? It's not a pretty picture. What are your friends doing about their hair? They're all spraying. The spray company must be making a fortune. How did you feel when the pandemic first started?

I couldn't believe it. President Trump is expected to declare a national emergency. I feel scared, worried for my family, very vulnerable.

When do you get most scared? Listening to TV, but I'm kind of addicted. What do you watch? I like Andrew Cuomo. He comes on every morning.

We're going to get through it because we are New York and because we are New York tough. I think he's very smart and I think he's honest. I love him. Have you heard the term Cuomo sexual?

Many Americans experience moments of being at least Andrew curious, if not fully Cuomo sexual. I don't get it. I hear he drives a vintage sports car. He also has a motorcycle. Do you like that?

Yeah, that's fine. He probably wears a helmet. Do you think he's handsome? Not as much as Chris.

He really is handsome. If you had to pick one of the Cuomo brothers to go on a date with, which would you pick? Why not do both? You mean go on dates with both of them? That would be nice.

You'd have to keep your social distance. Who says? What do you think of Anthony Fauci? I think he's a hero.

He stands up to President Trump's statements that are not true. Do you think Fauci's handsome? He's not bad looking. He's sure got a great personality. Would you go on a date with him? He's married.

If you went on a date with him, would you have to social distance? Absolutely. Well, I bet he has access to testing. I'm sure he does.

So maybe it would be okay. Uh, no. How do you like Deborah Birx? Oh, she's the scarf lady. I think she's very knowledgeable. Do you like her scarves?

Hey, if she's happy, what do I care? Does it inspire you to want to wear neck scarves? No. What do you think about wearing masks? I think it's a great idea. You're not just doing it for yourself.

You're doing it for other people. This is the one Rick made for me. Wow, that looks pretty cool. I've been reading that it's starting to become a fashion statement. I saw a woman in the store the other day wearing a Gucci mask. Oh yeah, there's some beautiful ones. There's also golden retriever masks. Really?

Different dogs. Do you think you look good in a mask? The older I get, the better I look in a mask. What's been the hardest moment so far? After I talked to my family and I hang up and I'm all alone, that's very hard. All the things I did that were fun and social stopped. I actually lost weight. Wow.

And not trying. It's just, I think I'm eating my own food, but I'd rather go to the restaurants. What advice do you have for people who are lonely right now?

You know, you could turn it around into a positive. Read a good book, trying to be creative and trying new things. People are starting to knit. A lot of them are baking. I even baked the cake. I can't believe it.

And it actually tasted all right. What tips do you have for people about their hair right now? Think about all the other things that could be wrong. Be grateful. Stick a hat on.

How to stay fit while you're stuck at home? Why would you ask me? Nancy Giles has the story of a fitness device fit for a queen.

Back in early March, just be careful. I got a Peloton bike. Let me set facing. I was going to do a story on the fitness company, so they gave me a loaner. To try out, whatever you want to name your new Peloton friend here.

I repeat, it was a loner. The three adjustments, your seat height, up and down, forward and back on this right side here. And your handlebar height. Then came the pandemic and I was stuck at home.

25 resistance. But I still had a job to do. Oh, I see. This is cool.

They try to get it so that you're pedaling in time with the music. It wasn't easy. I'm out of breath. I've only been at this for, I don't know, like, five years.

A minute and 10 seconds. A Peloton? You may have heard of Peloton when its holiday ad last year was criticized. A year ago, I didn't realize how much this would change me. And widely mocked. My husband got me a Peloton for Christmas.

Nothing weird about that. Thank you. You get me. But now with gyms still closed in many places, at home fitness is more in demand. And that's made Peloton one of the few companies to prosper in this economy. The tailwind of COVID is undeniable.

Compared to last year, sales are up 66 percent. It is a little bit awkward that we are profiting from this situation. John Foley is Peloton's founder and CEO.

He started the company in 2012 with small investors and a Kickstarter campaign. It usually takes us seven days to deliver a bike. Now it's taking us seven weeks.

Oh my goodness. Do you delivery guys, do they, and women, do they get paid sick leave? Yeah, absolutely, we have generous sick leave. We also have what's called hazard pay. We heard some other delivery companies that we're giving them two dollars an hour more or something for hazard pay. Looks nice. We just said, what about a hundred dollars a day more for everyone who is going out there and greeting our members and in this environment, it felt right. And it seems like Peloton can afford it. All right, buddy.

Enjoy. The bike sells for an eye-popping $2,200. Plus a $39 a month subscription. But it's not really the bike or their $4,000 treadmill that's the real attraction. It's actually the classes. Group cycling, running, yoga, and strength training are all streamed from Peloton Studios right to your home.

But like so many other workplaces, the studios are now shuttered and they've had to improvise. What's up my Peloton, how are you? I am Ally Love. Teaching live from home kind of blows my mind. Live from my home. I am so excited you are here.

Ally Love is one of the instructors. I get to go in my living room, get on a bike, and somehow there's a camera that everyone can see me from my house. We're having a pop party in my living room.

When I talk about a house party now, it will never be the same. She's part personal trainer, part self-help guru. I'm compassionate with myself and others through deeds and actions, words and rhetoric. What's going to happen? You have such a positive energy. How are you dealing with this pandemic?

I know it's wearing on me. So there's been something that I've been saying to myself and to others is that it's okay not to be okay. I don't know what the future looks like and I allow myself to feel all the feels. If this all sounds a bit spiritual... This incredible journey of self-empowerment and self-care.

Well, that's not an accident. CEO John Foley. I was noticing that organized religion was on the decline, statistically, and I did see the people with boutique fitness in general. People really embrace it and the congregation and the community and the ritual.

Somebody talking to you from a pulpit for 45 minutes. In the midst of chaos, we find what? Peace. So take inventory of your body, acknowledge your heart.

It's a healthy religion. I mean, you get the endorphins and you get the community and you get the connection. What's going to be the next step for this business? I see tens of millions of global subscribers and members. I often talk to our teams. It feels like we are Amazon in 1999.

We'll see. So far, the company has sold almost a million bikes and treadmills. But there are lots of other options for working out at home right now. It's every class you can imagine. Live. Welcome back to the mirror. And most are less expensive.

And let's be honest. Over the years, we've seen all sorts of fads for getting in shape at home. What's this, turbo jam? I should know. Yoga for weight loss. I've bought most of them, as I explained a few years ago. And Pilates, which I think still has the plastic on them. Oh, and last but not least, it's the shaker. If you had the shake weight in your hands right now, you'd feel the results before the end of this commercial.

But when it was time to return the loaner, I didn't want to give it back. I was actually working out. And I could even take a bike ride with my friends.

Like Sunday morning editor Ed Gibnish. All in a very disconnected time. We're supposed to be over 50.

I mean resistance, not age. So, full disclosure, in 18 monthly payments, it'll be mine. Will peddling myself into a sweaty frenzy make a difference? I don't know. But you know what they say. In the end, it's not really about the destination.

It's about the ride. I'm Jane Pauley. Please stay safe. And join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Next Sunday morning. The good fight. The final season. Now streaming exclusively on Paramount+.