Introduction - Read this first
In January, 2020, a man in his 30's was the first in the U.S. to be diagnosed with COVID-19, a novel coronavirus related to SARS and MERS. The man had traveled to Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began, and returned home to Washington State, where I live. At the end of February, the first death was reported in Kirkland, Washington. A nursing home in that city became the center of an outbreak where two-thirds of the residents and dozens of staff members tested positive; 40 deaths became linked to the facility. But the virus did not stop with our state or our country. In March, as the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic, I realized I was living through what would become a significant point on historic timelines. I began to write about the ways the coronavirus was changing the lives of everyone around me. The first stay-at-home orders from local officials kept us from work, school, and most of our daily routines. Those of us stuck at home stocked up on basic food