Monday marks 20 weeks since this COVID-19 thing got serious, 20 weeks since March 16, when most Bay Area counties issued a shelter-in-place order. Two days later, Solano County joined the order.
Over the past 20 weeks, we've endured a lockdown, flattening of the COVID curve, a reopening, the expansion of the pandemic and more.
Sports stopped. Theaters, restaurants and most retail stores closed. Schools and churches shut down.
We wear masks in public. We hoard toilet paper. We drive less. We stay home more. We argue about every issue.
Twenty weeks.
Here are 20 of my weekly thoughts from the pandemic.
Week 1: Is the world ending? Going to my office to get equipment so I can work from home feels like I'm in an apocalyptic movie.
Week 2: A Facebook friend (who previously only posted memes about food) cites an obscure scientific website that insists COVID-19 is like the flu.
Week 3: Sports stopped three weeks ago and it's agonizing. No March Madness, no baseball, no NBA playoffs. I created a putt-putt course in my home.
Week 4: The shelter-in-place order was extended. The mask Mrs. Brad made me works, but I'd like something more comfortable. Off to Amazon!
Week 5: When will the toilet paper shortage end? Ridiculous.
Week 6: My Facebook friend claims COVID-19 is a plot by the deep-state government to control us. How shutting down businesses benefits the government is unclear.
Week 7: Things are stable. I'd make a "flattening the curve" joke, except they've all been said.
Week 8: It doesn't seem so weird to go to the grocery store with a mask. We're ordering to-go food from restaurants. They're talking about opening up again, but we'll see.
Week 9: My Facebook friend calls people who don't see a conspiracy, "sheeple." He cites obscure data that more people will from a recession than COVID-19.
Week 10: Mrs. Brad is now my barber. Unfortunately for her, I can't cut women's hair, so she's on her own. I haven't thought about sports much lately.
Week 11: Demonstrations are sweeping the nation. I stopped wearing gloves while grocery shopping, but boarded-up windows due to looting makes it feels apocalyptic again.
Week 12: My Facebook friend insists that the political demonstrations prove that COVID-19 is a political scam and cites a report on an obscure website that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a fraud.
Week 13: Sports have been gone so long that I don't really remember what it was like to have them. Will their return be good news?
Week 14: Zoom fatigue continues. Video calls seemed good for a while, but now they just make me weary. My unstable WiFi doesn't help.
Week 15: My Facebook friend says that the fact that the Center for Disease Control's changing approach on masks proves that the government doesn't know what it's doing. He won't wear a mask.
Week 16: Schools may reopen. Or not. With no school-age kids, I feel for both sides: Parents forced to teach and teachers who don't feel safe. There's no easy answer.
Week 17: My Facebook friend cites a study about the low death rate of COVID-19 among younger people and says we should just treat it like the flu. It's not that dangerous.
Week 18: Baseball returns this week! How did I live without baseball?
Week 19: The Miami Marlins had a COVID-19 outbreak, but the NBA returns this week! How did I live without basketball?
Week 20: Will this be over in 2020? Will we get a vaccine? Will sports continue? My Facebook friend says . . .
Reach Brad Stanhope at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.
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