Tuesday’s late-afternoon tsunami watch for Hawaii was short-lived, but long enough to send shivers down some spines. Already faced with myriad concerns spawned by the ongoing coronavirus shutdown, another disaster might be coming Hawaii’s way? Luckily, the 7.5-magnitude quake off the Kuril Islands didn’t generate a tsunami strong enough to reach Hawaii.

Normally, the prospect of natural-disaster emergency shelters is dire enough. Let’s just hope Hawaii won’t be tested to make such shelters work under social-distancing conditions.

Ige, not Green, makes the calls

Politics is never far away, even while socially distancing. The appearances of Lt. Gov. Josh Green on the pandemic crisis scene have drawn some attention. Green was calling for quarantines for all airport arrivals, days before the top guy, Gov. David Ige, made it official. That timing seemed … awkward.

Green is a physician and Ige did name him the state’s coronavirus prevention liaison, but that doesn’t equate with making the emergency pronouncements. Those are likely to come from the office on the other side of the state Capitol’s fifth floor, from now on.