Week One of the Santa Barbara Shutdown

Reports on How Coronavirus Has Changed Our Lives Forever

Published March 19, 2020

Imagine a nuclear winter without an atomic bomb, a raging wildfire with no yesterday or tomorrow, and the utterly overwhelming economic disruption caused by a general strike. If you combine all that, then maybe, just maybe, you will get an inkling of what we’re all facing.

The word unprecedented has been used an awful lot lately. When Santa Barbara County Health Officer Dr. Henning Ansorg, now approaching his first 365 days on the job, was expressing his dismay at how much time he spent just learning about the looming pandemic, let alone reacting to it, and then communicating about it, he felt that was unprecedented. But that was last week. Since then, things have gotten a whole lot more unprecedented.