Puts it into perspective

Here is a timeline from LA Times daily email. Somehow this makes me calmer to remember what happened this year.


To give a little perspective, here’s a short timeline of the coronavirus pandemic in California:

Jan. 29, 2020: The U.S. government imposes a two-week quarantine on 195 people evacuated from Wuhan, China, to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside. It is a rare step.

The cruise ship Grand Princess arrives in San Francisco Bay and docks at the Port of Oakland after passing under the Bay Bridge.Jim Wilson/The New York Times
March 9, 2020: The Grand Princess cruise ship, which was stranded off the coast of California with coronavirus cases on board, docks at the Port of Oakland. It’s a floating symbol of America’s fear of the virus.
March 13, 2020: The state’s four largest school districts — Los Angeles Unified, San Diego Unified, Fresno Unified and Long Beach Unified — announce they’ll close classrooms, as health officials in Los Angeles confirm eight more coronavirus cases in the county. District officials expect the closures to last weeks.

Along the western shore of San Francisco at Ocean Beach, the parking lots were closed to discourage large crowds of people from showing up.Jim Wilson/The New York Times
March 19, 2020: Gov. Gavin Newsom orders all 40 million Californians to stay at home as much as possible, not only starting one of the largest-scale public health experiments in memory, but also raising difficult questions about what it means to do essential work.
April 28, 2020: Newsom unveils the state’s first phased reopening timeline. The plan doesn’t include specific dates, but sets metrics the officials will track.

A farmworker planting cantaloupes in Joe Del Bosque’s organic cantaloupe fields near Oro Loma.Max Whittaker for The New York Times
June 18, 2020: The governor makes face coverings mandatory after local mandates faced pushback.
July 1, 2020: An alarming surge in cases prompts the state to order bars and indoor dining to close in the state’s hardest-hit counties. It’s the most significant rollback yet of the state’s halting efforts to reopen.

A padlocked chained door at Moby Dick, a gay bar in the Castro District in San Francisco on March 17, 2020.Peter Dasilva/EPA, via Shutterstock
Aug. 28, 2020: Newsom unveils the state’s color-coded tier system for reopening. It will be the last framework for imposing and easing restrictions county by county.
Nov. 12, 2020: California becomes the second state after Texas to reach one million known coronavirus cases.
Dec. 3, 2020: Amid another surge in cases — the most terrifying California has experienced, because hospitals are overwhelmed — the state imposes new, stringent stay-at-home orders on a regional basis, based on the capacity of intensive care units. Restaurants offering outdoor dining close again. Families brace for distanced holidays.

Helen Cordova receives the first coronavirus vaccine shot in California. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press
Dec. 14, 2020: The first doses of coronavirus vaccine are administered in California. Helen Cordova, an intensive care nurse at Kaiser Permanente Los Angeles Medical Center, is the first person in California to get her shot.
Feb. 24, 2021: California surpasses 50,000 known coronavirus deaths — becoming the first state to reach that bleak milestone. It’s still far from the hardest hit relative to the size of its population.
April 15, 2021: All Californians age 16 and older become eligible for vaccines, as inoculations become more widely available.

Disneyland’s reopening day on April 30.Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
April 30, 2021: Disneyland reopens at 25 percent capacity.
June 15, 2021: California reopens — without capacity restrictions or distancing requirements.
For more: