I am a COVID-cautious host, so generally these meetings are outdoors, and at least some participants wear masks. Depending on current transmission levels, I sometimes wear a mask for outdoor events. For an indoor event that will include strangers, I wear a mask, including while hosting.

I would not be surprised if I am temperamentally less suited than the median person to be a good host for a stranger exhibiting this kind of anxiety, specifically the kind in which the person's worries and insecurities come out as incurious negative assumptions that I then feel an urge to painstakingly correct. So one thing I'm going to look into is getting cohosts for meetups, especially cohosts who are better at being chill.