THE PANDEMIC’S TOLL

Lives lost in California

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began its march across California, the death toll has grown exponentially, claiming the lives of the young and the elderly, the infirm and the healthy. In scores of interviews with the Los Angeles Times, families spoke of the cruelties of the disease. Yet most often they spoke of what loved ones had done for others. Here are some of their stories. More will be published and can be found at www.latimes.com/projects/coronavirus-lives-lost-in-california/

George Chiu 86, Palo Alto

George Chiu was a craftsman with an eye for detail and a passion for problemsolving. He carried both traits with him throughout his life.

Chiu, a San Francisco Bay Area native with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from San Jose State, began his career at Fairchild Semiconductor. In 1968 he followed Fairchild colleagues Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore to a start-up the two had founded in the semiconductor chip industry.

The 39th employee at Intel Corp., Chiu spent most of his career designing and assembling “packaging” that would seal off chips from moisture and other contaminants while still allowing the transmission of electronic signals.

“He was always a real hands-on engineer,” his daughter Jenny Sears said. “They just had to be inventive back then — there was no class in semiconductor chip packaging. They’d be testing materials all the time. People would say, ‘Well, your dad knew more about materials than some people with doctorates.’ ”

In a company publication celebrating Intel’s 25th anniversary, Chiu reflected on his career: “I was the first engineer doing package development at Intel. I’m still doing basically the same thing and I love it,” he said. “I can hold a product in my hand and see my contribution to it; my identity’s in that package. I was supposed to retire almost 10 years ago, but when there’s so much going on here, who wants to retire?”

In the 1990s Chiu also worked on a technology, widely used today, known as “C4” processing, that enabled chips to simultaneously make hundreds, and eventually thousands, of electrical connections.

Craig Noke, a former carpool mate and jogging partner, said Chiu loved to solve problems.

“That was his life,” Noke said. “You had some problem at work, and try and find out what the solution is — that was his satisfaction.”

Chiu had an eye for handiwork as well. When he had his house remodeled, he came home every day and inspected the work, asking the contractor to straighten something out “1/16th of an inch” even if functionally it was perfect, said Noke, who used the same contractor.

Chiu had a lighter side too. Colleagues and his daughter recalled his penchant for rock concerts at the Fillmore in the 1960s, where he would stand next to speakers to immerse himself in the music — a habit that may have contributed to his severe hearing loss.

“He was like this old hippie,” Sears said.

Chiu had a plethora of hobbies — travel, photography, jewelry-making, collecting tools. He also liked cars, buying a Porsche Boxster after he retired.

Most of all, though, he loved to eat — Chinese food, especially.

Paul Engel, a colleague and best friend of 40 years, spent months with Chiu in Penang, Malaysia, where Intel had package assembly plants. The two would go on culinary adventures, often seeking out char quay teow, a Chinese noodle-and-seafood dish.

“We couldn’t get enough of that,” Engel said.

Engel later left the company but continued to meet Chiu every week for years.

“We’d go to lunch and eat like pigs — and he’d go home that evening and right away ask, ‘What’s for dinner, Florence?’ ” Engel said, referring to Chiu’s wife, who died in 2011.

When Chiu died, friends joked that he went to heaven, found Florence and immediately asked, “What’s for dinner?”

Late in life, Chiu developed Alzheimer’s disease. He continued to live alone at his Palo Alto home, assisted by roundthe-clock caregivers. By late last year much of his memory was failing, but Engel said “he could still talk about Penang and the food there.”

It’s unclear how Chiu contracted COVID-19, but his daughter said it could have been from a recent hospital stay or possibly from one of his caregivers, although they were extremely careful. He died Dec. 31. He was 86.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand’s largest city, Auckland, has begun a three-day lockdown following the discovery of three unexplained coronavirus cases in the community.

Health officials said Monday that the cases were of the more contagious variant first found in Britain and that genome testing hadn’t linked them to any previous known cases.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the lockdown after an urgent meeting with top lawmakers in the Cabinet.

She said they decided to take a cautious approach until they find out more about the outbreak.

The lockdown, which extends through Wednesday, is the first in New Zealand in six months and represents a setback in the nation’s largely successful efforts to control the virus.

It has also forced a delay in the America’s Cup sailing regatta.

New Zealand had successfully stamped out community spread, and many people elsewhere in the world looked on in envy as New Zealanders went back to work and began attending concerts and sporting events without the need to wear masks or take other precautions.

Indeed, Ardern on Sunday had planned to attend the Big Gay Out, an Auckland festival that celebrates the rainbow community and attracts tens of thousands of people. She ended up canceling those plans and returning to Wellington to manage the outbreak.

“I’m asking New Zealanders to continue to be strong and to be kind,” Ardern said at a hastily arranged news conference. “I know we all feel the same way when this happens. We all get that sense of ‘Not again.’ But remember, we have been here before and that means we know how to get out of this again, and that is together.”

New Zealand’s greatest vulnerability has been at the border.

New cases are regularly caught among returning travelers, all of whom are required to spend two weeks in quarantine. Despite precautions, there have been several times when the virus has leaked out from the border before being controlled again, and officials are trying to determine whether that’s happened again.

In the latest case, an Auckland mother, father and daughter caught the disease. Officials said the mother works at a catering company that does laundry for airlines, and officials are investigating whether there is a link to infected passengers. Officials said the woman hadn’t been going aboard the planes herself.

The rest of New Zealand outside of Auckland has also had restrictions imposed, including limiting crowd sizes to 100.

“We are gathering all of the facts as quickly as we can, and the system that served us so well in the past is really gearing up to do so again,” COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said.

He described the cases as new and active.

“New Zealand has kept COVID-19 contained better than almost any other country,” Hipkins said. “But as we have kept saying, there is no such thing as no risk.”

New Zealand, with a population of 5 million, has reported a total of just over 2,300 cases and 25 deaths since the pandemic started.

The country has been hosting the America’s Cup sailing regatta. Racing was due to continue Wednesday in the Prada Cup challenger series, but organizers have announced that a postponement will be necessary.

Italy’s Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli leads Britain’s INEOS Team UK 4-0 in the first-toseven series.

The winner will then take on Emirates Team New Zealand for the America’s Cup.