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March 17, 2020: The Bay Area Lockdown Begins
Updates on conditions in the Bay Area during the COVID-19 lockdown
Today was the first day of a general lockdown in the San Francisco Bay Area, amid a global, escalating outbreak of the COVID-19 coronavirus. All businesses were ordered to close — except for those on a list deemed essential — and residents were asked to shelter at home.
I’ve been writing extensively about COVID-19 and its impacts on the Bay Area. I’ve talked about data privacy during a pandemic, common sense steps to reduce transmission, and the resiliency of the Bay Area in the face of shocks and disasters. I’ve also written about how to cover a pandemic as a creator, and about a photo series I undertook to document the early impact.
I’ve created this publication to provide updates on conditions here in the Bay Area, my shorter-form observations about our ongoing lockdown/quarantine, and photos showing what life is like in the Bay Area right now.
As a professional photographer and member of the news media (who are exempt from the travel ban) and for a personal reason which I won’t get into here, I will be in a position to document more of the outbreak than a typical citizen — albeit often without leaving my car, and always following stringent safety standards and the orders of…
