Every newspaper, from local publications to the New York Times, have been running front-page stories on the novel coronavirus for weeks. April 22’s San Francisco Examiner displays a story on traffic closures to help social distancing measures.
A group of teenage boys walks their dogs through the Carlmont Shopping Center, masks covering their noses and mouths. It’s a Wednesday, and at this time they would usually be in their fifth period class. However, they haven’t been to school in over a month.
“It seems like there are more people out now, during quarantine,” one laughs, observing more masked figures passing by on the sidewalk.
He’s not entirely wrong. Since the outbreak of COVID-19, the Bay Area has not become a ghost town. People still do their shopping, walk their dogs, and go for runs. But when you look closer, you find a community that has been profoundly and irrevocably changed by the pandemic.
