Coronavirus tales: How de Blasio’s sign language interpreter conveys mayor’s ‘disgust’

Most every day now, New Yorkers see Jonathan Lamberton on TV — the 43-year-old, who lives in FiDi, is the certified deaf interpreter for Mayor de Blasio’s press briefings.

I’ve worked with the mayor through major events and emergency situations — Ebola, snowstorms — before, but this is really high stakes. I remember with Ebola, there were some deaf folks who locked themselves inside until they saw the interpreter clearly explain how it was not airborne.

I’m on call for a few hours each day for the press conferences. I have to be ready to go at any time, and I keep up with the news so I can anticipate what might come up.

City Hall has been good about keeping the conferences safe. I’ve seen ones from other states have overly crowded stages and rooms. There’s nobody that close to me. Also: Gov. Cuomo’s doing a great job overall, but Albany needs an interpreter.

Instead of touching my mouth and cheeks to produce a sign, now I do it six inches in front of my mouth and cheeks.

I incorporate the mayor’s tone into my interpretation. He was disgusted with a reporter’s question last week — about him micromanaging and about Dr. Barbot possibly resigning [as city health commissioner] — and I showed a bit of that in my expression.

At first, there was no clear sign for coronavirus. I spelled it out and used CV for shorthand and kept an eye out on what the deaf community was doing. A sign emerged and so I started using that. There’s no specific sign for ventilator, so I’ve been using my own combination of 2 to 3 signs. I’ve never seen a situation where so many new signs emerged this quickly.

— As told to Doree Lewak

Read more stories about surviving the coronavirus pandemic.