The really unsettling thing about the coronavirus panic, is that the people we were always told to look to for guidance through such an overarching tragedy—the president, the news media, the highly paid experts trained in said tragedies—seem to all be bungling their way through it right now.

Into this black hole of hope(lessness) has stepped Naomi Campbell, who has just made a six minute video for her wildly successful YouTube channel that offers a surprisingly succinct and helpful assemblage of information about surviving the coronavirus pandemic while traveling. She gives an endearing peek behind the supermodel iron curtain, unabashedly confessing to her own fears, but also expressing confidence that her years of vigilant experience battling the forces of life-threatening ickiness can help guide us through our own sense of panic, confusion and dread.

 

 

“In all honesty, this is not a humorous time, I’m not doing this for laughs,” she insists, as she dons a quasi hazmat suit, and suggests that fellow supermodel Linda Evangelista is in on the game with her. “The mask I started wearing in the ’90s, and the cleaning of the seat I started doing about seventeen years ago,” she reveals, suggesting that, perhaps during numerous bouts of Frasier binge-watching, Niles Crane had decisively rubbed off on her.

As the passing of time tends to bestow humility on the supermodel class, there’s something distinctly endearing about Mlle. Campbell gracing us with useful safety information at such a terrifying moment as this. Then going full egalitarian, she offers, “I hope that the lady or gentleman who looks at our passport will also be wearing gloves, because for them to have to touch thousands of passports a day is also a risk.” It’s a genuinely heartwarming moment, at time when mostly our hearts have just been racing with fear. Thanks NC!