On March 11, 2020, then-Gov. Jay Inslee issued an emergency proclamation prohibiting large public events with more than 250 people in King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties.
Over the next few days, more executive actions followed suit, effectively shutting down the state as COVID-19 began to spread nationwide.
Five years later, we asked our staff and our readers to reflect on their experience of the pandemic. Here are some of those memories.
What was a surreal moment you remember in those first few weeks?
It was surreal, to me, how quickly we adapted to standing in lines, 6 feet apart, to enter a store with limits on how many people could be inside. I recall standing in a long line outside a Trader Joe’s in the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle, some masked, some wearing gloves, all quietly waiting to be allowed in as though it were an exclusive club or gallery opening. — Frank Catalano, CDN Business Contributor
On Feb. 29, 2020, my friend and I were at the Northwest Garden Show in Seattle, which ran from Feb. 26 to March 1. We were wandering the aisles, wide-eyed with wonder at the rich displays of creativity and talent. I checked my phone and saw that the first death in Washington state had been reported, just 10 miles from us in Kirkland. A chill ran through me.
I had known that this might happen, but not when. I pulled two N95 masks and two pairs of cotton gloves from my purse. My friend and I were now alone in our semi-protected state, in that huge crowded space.
It’s hard to describe how our mood went from carefree to one of doom. Everything changed in an instant. We watched those around us, wondering when they would learn what had happened, and how they would react.
That was the day that everything changed. — Dana Good, Mount Vernon
One of the most surreal moments I remember from the beginning of COVID was the last day of in-person public school I taught here in Bellingham. We had, in the morning, received an all-staff email that implied we should expect some important communications regarding public health and school. A few hours later when the bell rang for the end of the day, my entire class of students got up and celebrated not having school for two weeks. Many of the staff had no idea what they were talking about. The governor had made his proclamation midday, and because of social media and our school administration, students knew about the two-week preliminary shutdown hours before the adults in the building did. It was so bizarre, and a moment that I think back to often in hindsight. — Emily Carey, Bellingham
I was living in Brooklyn at the time. When we were the epicenter of the pandemic in early April, I would be working from my bed in my tiny three-person apartment, hearing ambulance sirens go past every few hours since we were on a hospital route. Then I started to notice that some sirens sounded different. Those were the ambulances from out of state that had been sent to help those who were sick and dying. — Annie Todd, CDN Staff Reporter
After it became clear two weeks was an extreme under-guess, my last quarter at Western Washington University was moved entirely online. Though I was a journalism major, I was trying to eek in a chemistry minor, so I was registered for an analytical chemistry lab. We were asked to pinpoint at what milliliter a titration reaction occurred while watching a shaky phone video taken by a technologically average professor. A lot of unearned As were handed out at the end of that class. But I did get my minor! — Audra Anderson, CDN Assistant Editor
I was terrified because my darling husband was away working in New York City, the pandemic epicenter of North America. As the pandemic progressed, some NYC hospitals had to hire forklifts to remove the bodies overflowing from their morgues. A grim tally has been kept by the NYC Health Department: 3,694,649 NYC COVID-19 cases (NYC population is over 8.3 million); 240,963 hospitalizations and 46,865 deaths. … I frantically pleaded with my husband to come home to Bellingham. Finally, he agreed. I was on tenterhooks until the moment when he walked into the Paine Field Airport in Everett on arrival. We burst into tears.
To calm my nerves, I had started three regular habits which I continue to this day: recording every book I read in a journal (to date I have read 145 books since the start of the pandemic); paying daily attention to precious aspects of nature; every bedtime sharing with my husband, three things from each day that were special — counting our blessings. — Michèle Menzies, Bellingham
March 23, 2020* — Governor Inslee announced a two-week “stay at home” order beginning March 25 which was then extended. After a couple weeks at home, I took a drive to Lynden for a change of scenery. There were few cars on Hannegan. As I arrived in Lynden, the town was deserted — no parked cars, no one walking in town, stores closed. I parked with nearly no other car in site. I walked from town to Fairway Center and back, meeting no one along the way. It was eerie! — Carol Waugh, Bellingham
* entry taken from Waugh’s coronavirus diary
On March 9, 2020, I lay on a gurney in a hospital emergency room in northeastern Vermont. A week earlier I’d made my annual trip back to my former home state to ski with friends at Burke Mountain. I caught an edge on an easy trail and pitched forward and out of my skis. I knew right away that I’d hurt myself. The ski patrol got me down the mountain on a sled and an ambulance delivered me to the Northeastern Vermont Regional Hospital. X-rays revealed I’d broken both my kneecaps. Two days later, as I lay in my hospital bed, my phone started pinging like crazy. The NBA had just announced they were closing down their season due to the spread of the COVID virus. I was stunned and the thought occurred to me, “I could die here.” After a 10-day stay in the hospital, I was released and moved into a rental property for three months while waiting to determine if I would need knee replacement surgery. It turned out I didn’t! My wife and I finally returned to Bellingham on June 3 on a mostly empty plane. Two months later I celebrated my 80th birthday. — Linda Morrow, Bellingham
Is there anything or anyone you grieve from life before COVID?
My grandpa, Ed, fell in the bathroom and hit his head in September 2020. Paramedics didn’t find anything wrong aside from some bruising, but strongly urged him to go to the hospital anyway. However, no family would be allowed in the room with him due to COVID restrictions. He declined. Instead, he and my grandma spent the next several hours talking side-by-side in their bed. It was like any other morning, except he was being strangely reflective. Fishing for trout in the Colorado River, their 61 years of marriage, his three kids, two grandkids and a long line of pet dachshunds. Eventually, he stopped making sense. Panicked, my grandma called 911 again and he was rushed to the hospital. He had a massive brain bleed. Ignoring the rules, kind staff allowed my grandma and mom into the room to say goodbye and hug him. He died shortly after from a massive brain bleed. I like to think he somehow knew that, and wanted to spend his final lucid hours with his wife. — Audra Anderson, CDN Assistant Editor
I miss being able to ignore when someone near me in a public space sneezed or coughed a couple of times. I’m now wired to experience a twinge of anxiety. Maybe that’s healthier. But it’s not fun. — Frank Catalano, CDN Business Contributor
Loss of my health and social gatherings. My husband, Thor Hansen, and I were traveling in Thailand in February 2020, our usual active explorations involving hiking and snorkeling, when I noticed unusual shortness of breath and a persistent cough. We had heard news of a new virus that had sent Chinese tourists home, and at the airport to return home to Bellingham, we encountered a lot of people wearing masks. A kind traveler gave us masks, our first time wearing them. Luckily, we made it home before borders closed down with the COVID-19 pandemic starting. Unfortunately, as my symptoms persisted, no doctor would give me an appointment because I didn’t have a fever, and health facilities were in disarray. Finally, after months, I got appointments and eventually tests that diagnosed never-smoker lung cancer. All the delays and disruptions of the pandemic had allowed the tumor to progress past the stage that most likely would have been a relatively easy cure.
Now, five years later, I’ve gone through painful surgeries, chemotherapy, radiation, and more for what has become recurrent cancer, and am still facing more interventions, with an uncertain prognosis. My former very active lifestyle is drastically curtailed, with continuing pain, shortness of breath, and weakness that also limits my work writing novels. My immune system is compromised, and I miss social gatherings such as extended-family holiday parties and dinners with friends, as Thor and I must continue masking when around people indoors. I’ve been mocked by ignorant people when I wear a mask in stores. A difficult bout with COVID, despite vaccinations and masking, hasn’t helped, but I am grateful to be alive, unlike many who haven’t survived the virus. — Sara Stamey, Blaine
Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when the shutdowns began?
I was teaching kindergarten life skills in the Ferndale School District, mostly working with kindergarten-age kids on the autism spectrum. These were kids who needed help toileting and they would sneeze and cough, and they needed help washing their hands and wiping their noses. It was a very germy environment.
March 16 was my birthday. That was Monday and we stayed home. And we never went back to the building that school year. We didn’t have any training on how to teach online and we didn’t know very much about which apps to use. I very rarely saw the kids the rest of the school year even though I had online sessions. It was just rare that anybody showed up … There were so many unknowns that I decided to put in my resignation for the following school year. — Kathy Hennessy, Bellingham
The weekend the COVID-19 pandemic shut down North America, I was a second-year student at the University of British Columbia, and I really needed a hug from my mum. Overwhelmed by school and work, I was trying to book a bus down to Bellingham for the weekend when I saw a news alert that felt like it came from an alternate universe: the U.S.-Canada border was closed.
And then it stayed closed. For 19 months.
But there was Peace Arch Park. Several times that summer, I drove a rental car the 30 miles down to 0 Avenue in South Surrey, where I would hop a ditch and meet my family in the park (it was legal then, not so much anymore). For us, it was a lifeline of connection in such an isolated time. There, I finally got that hug from my mum. — Charlotte Alden, CDN Staff Reporter
March 14, 2020* — All libraries including their drop boxes were scheduled to close at the end of the day. This very windy Saturday brought hoards of people to Bellingham’s downtown library. Before I left home, I located seven books on the library’s website that I wanted to read that were available downtown plus their call numbers to minimize the amount of time I would spend in the library. People were checking out enormous stacks of books and leaving with shopping bags filled to capacity. One book that I really wanted to read was in Lynden, so I drove through the windstorm for that coveted book and waited in another long line to check out. — Carol Waugh, Bellingham
* entry taken from Waugh’s coronavirus diary
Before it got “serious” I remember my dad calling me to say it was going to get serious. I didn’t believe him. Shortly after I was working my last shift at the bowling alley, cleaning all surfaces diligently. Every TV had a photo of bowlers high-fiving, with a big red “no” symbol over the action. It felt like a scene from “The Twilight Zone” because only a few people were bowling on a weekend day that usually would have been busy. Three days later, the state shut down. — Jaya Flanary, CDN Digital Editor
In my sophomore year in college, I flew home for the weekend to cover the Pac-12 Championships for wrestling. I rented out more than $10,000 worth of camera equipment from the school and was expecting to return from California to Arizona on Monday. However, word spread that everything shut down and I was trapped back home with old clothes I hadn’t taken to college and a bunch of school equipment. I began taking online classes from home and was unable to return to Arizona for a month. I finally went back in mid-April to return my equipment and books and celebrate my birthday with my roommates. — Nick Zeller-Singh, CDN Sports Reporter
At the end of 2019, a toxic relationship I was in wrapped up. All my belongings that didn’t fit on the back of a motorcycle were put into storage. At that point, cases of COVID-19 were first being reported in China. They were — like many things — distant things happening in a distant land.
That didn’t last. I made it south from Oregon to California’s high desert by the time public spaces started closing. I was rock climbing and living in my tent.
Starbucks shut down. It was a bigger deal than you might expect. Not only was I reliant on the company for coffee, but also for electricity and WiFi. I had few bills but those I had were paid for with freelance writing work. (Tents are not known for their electrical sockets.)
A few gems in the climbing community took me under their wing. An extension cord ran out of one of their homes on the outskirts of Joshua Tree National Park — which was also closed — and into my tent. I wrote when it wasn’t too hot from the midday sun or too cold from the high desert nights.
I had a quarantine crew. I tried to know what was safe. I tried to find rocks socially acceptable to climb. I didn’t have anywhere else to go. — Isaac Stone Simonelli, CDN Staff Reporter
What is your memory of your first vaccine?
I got my first vaccine at the Tulalip Health Clinic. I was extremely nervous of having a bad reaction. My anxiety subsided when I entered the building, which I had never been in before. The volunteers were gracious and patient. Music was playing and sun shone in through tall windows. During a time when everything felt sterile and scary, the tribe offered a calm environment. I waited among others for 15 minutes — it felt like longer — to see if I had a bad reaction, but I didn’t. I left with the first ounce of hope I’d had in almost a year. — Jaya Flanary, CDN Digital Editor
I went to a college gym in Brooklyn in early March to get my vaccine from doctors/nurses in the New York State National Guard. It felt like a set out of an apocalypse movie as we waited in line, got the shot and then waited 15 minutes for any reaction. I was anxious because I have a severe peanut allergy (one of seven kinds of common allergies) and I was told I could be at risk of reaction. I brought both my epi-pens and I didn’t stop shaking until I left the gym, vaccine card in hand. — Annie Todd, CDN Staff Reporter
During the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, I was on a three-month contract with the World Health Organization’s emergency communications department, editing photos and writing blog posts. I sorted through hundreds of photos from pop-up vaccine clinics everywhere from Nepal to the Philippines, Ghana and Colombia. But even after I shut my laptop, I couldn’t stop catastrophizing about vaccine equity. I was haunted by images of hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa, some of which were running out of oxygen. Programs like COVAX promised vaccines to low-income countries, but ultimately fell short of their targets. Vaccines were here, but people were still dying — and the contrast between this global need and some Americans’ hostility toward vaccines was distressing. Shutting my laptop at the end of the day felt like entering an alternate reality; the job was rewarding, but my mental health was at a new low. — Cocoa Laney, CDN Lifestyle Editor
