Member-only story
March 22, 2020: Week One Under COVID Lockdown
Real pain, but also real hope for a flattened curve
The San Francisco Bay Area has been under lockdown for almost a week now. The rest of the state of California followed relatively soon after our region, entering a lockdown earlier this week.
So far, the drastic measures seem to be working. Looking at a map of COVID-19 infections today, the Bay Area has a growing number of infected people, but is overall a smallish blip — with a number of infected people that appears similar to the count in regions like Colorado and Michigan. That’s pretty remarkable, given that the Bay Area is one of the places were COVID-19 first took hold and first started spreading in the community.
In contrast, the New York region — which tragically waited until the end of last week to impose its own lockdown, and whose governor initially downplayed the need for aggressive containment measures — is now experiencing an explosive growth in cases. The New York region has 15,168 cases as of today, whereas the Bay Area has 772.
Despite the hardships, Bay Area residents have been relatively stoic and very committed to our lockdown. We’re a region focused on social action (and one uniquely suited to working from home, at least for a large chunk of the labor force), so I think we’ve been in a…
