{"id":43899,"date":"2025-03-08T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T08:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=43899"},"modified":"2026-06-05T08:56:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T08:56:25","slug":"five-years-ago-this-month-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/five-years-ago-this-month-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Years Ago This Month — Covid Shut Down Our World"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"five<\/a>
Five yeas ago this month — covid social distancing measures started showing up in doctors’ offices. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Five years ago this month, covid was declared a national emergency.<\/p>\n

We shut ourselves up in our houses and apartments, hoarded hand sanitizer and alcohol wipes, figured out how to order groceries on line, and Skyped and Zoomed with distant loved ones.<\/p>\n

Some of us got sick. Some of us died. Many of us lost loved ones to the pandemic.<\/p>\n

It so happens that 2020, the pandemic year, is the last full year I had with my husband Jon, who died in February, 2021.\u00a0Because of our covid fears, Jon and I didn’t do much that year, so I focused my writing — and my trusty point-and-shoot — on our sheltering-at-home adventures.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the stories I wrote that year. Maybe they will bring back memories — some sad and hopefully some amusing — for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

Five Years Ago This Month — Covid Stories From the\u00a0Sheltering at Home Chronicles<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Will Donald Trump Be the Death of Me?<\/a>\u00a0Pardon My Rant as I Shelter in Place and Wind Up Praying for the President. Day 11 — i<\/em>n which I actually do find myself praying for Donald Trump, alongside people like Nancy Pelosi and Mitt Romney.<\/p>\n

The Coronavirus Cruise Ship Has Disappeared From Our View.<\/a>\u00a0Why Does That Make Me Sad? Sheltering in Place Week 4 — i<\/em>n which Jon and I, in our isolation, get pleasure and companionship from the view we have from our kitchen of a brightly lit — and quarantined — cruise ship floating on the San Francisco Bay.<\/p>\n

Why I Write About the Small Stuff.<\/a>\u00a0Like the Kettle Corn That Showed Up in Our Food Order. Sheltering in Place Week 4 — i<\/em>n which, thanks to a covid delivery mix-up, I wind up sampling a lot of strange foods, including a hoppy pop — the alcohol-free Hoppy Refresher from Lagunitas Brewing Company.<\/p>\n

\"five<\/a>
During the pandemic, the Whole Foods store in Berkeley shut down its bins of unpackaged grains, cereals and nuts — and replaced them with bags of popcorn and packaged snacks. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"five<\/a><\/p>\n

Five years ago this month covid shut down our world. There wasn’t much to do, so I wrote a lot of covid stories, some sad and some, I like to think, amusing.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,41],"tags":[2623,34,1234,29,82,2229,2684,2325,2959],"class_list":["post-43899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-sheltering-at-home-chronicles","tag-covid","tag-dont-miss","tag-health","tag-jon","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-pandemic","tag-sheltering-at-home-chronicles","tag-sheltering-in-place","tag-whole-foods"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43899"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48584,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43899\/revisions\/48584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}