San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
7 months in, they’re still staying home.
As information and infection rates fluctuate, these Bay Area residents have stayed safe by staying inside
Josh McManus has not left his home since March. Apart from a handful of walks on an isolated trail in the hills near his Richmond home — and one emergency visit to the dentist — the 39yearold project manager and his wife have strictly adhered to the message issued by public health experts at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic: Stay home. Save lives.
“We have had moments of reaching the breaking point,” McManus says. “But then we get better.”
They are not the only ones. While many Bay Area residents clamor to venture out into the world as counties ease restrictions on restaurants, bars and movie theaters, many others are choosing to wait it out.
Whether they have immunocompromised family members or simply lack clear information, they all have their reasons for staying in. But the main reason appears to be the least apparent to the people who pour into Dolores Park with friends from different neighborhoods, or toss their face masks aside as they drink and dine on crowded Marina sidewalks. The pandemic is not over. Gov. Gavin Newsom warned last week that the rate of virus transmission is creeping back up in California, putting at risk the decline in new cases that the state has seen in recent weeks. In the Bay Area, the effective reproduction number of the virus, the number of people that one infected person passes the virus on to, has risen slightly over the last month to a nearly 11 ratio.
State health officials have also raised concerns that an uptick in coronavirus cases tied to September’s Labor Day celebrations could lead to an 89% increase in hospitalizations over the next month.
“I just don’t know what we would do if we got sick,” says Julie House, 64, who has stuck close to her home in San Francisco’s Diamond Heights neighborhood for nearly seven months with her 73yearold husband. “My children are not here. Who am I going to call?”
Last month, the official COVID19 global death toll exceeded 1 million people — a figure many experts say is far less than the actual number of casualties. For the people who have decided to avoid putting themselves at risk, there is no compelling reason to race toward normalcy.
As restrictions ease, people have started venturing out again to meet up with friends, go on vacations and flock back to businesses, causing the virus to surge and abate over and over.
For those who are sheltering, seeing the wildly fluctuating case counts has affirmed their decision to carry on staying inside.
“There seems to be a big disconnect between how people see their place in the world and the level of responsibility they have to those around them,” says McManus, who has cystic fibrosis, a hereditary disease that affects the lungs and makes them vulnerable to respiratory infections. “You can drive down the freeway and pretty much witness the sheer number of people who drive like their interests are the only ones that matter. It is a little depressing knowing that as strict as we are, we can only do so much.”
On a national scale, we have seen the disparity play out with the way people have balked at mask mandates and social distancing measures. Even government officials have left people to weigh their own risks rather than coming up with meaningful enforcement measures for containing the spread of the virus.
“I had a Telephysical with my primary physician and told her I needed an eye exam,” says House. “She said, do not go out right now if you don’t need to. She was pretty firm. If she’s going to say don’t go out, I’m not going out.”
According to data collected by SafeGraph, a company that analyzes anonymous cell phone location data, an average of roughly 11% of the people in the Bay Area stay at home all day.
McManus says he realizes sheltering in place is a privilege. He is married and has a job that allows him to work remotely. But it does not make dealing with the isolation any easier.
“I am very politically engaged,” he says. “I see the Black Lives Matter protests, and I want to support everyone as much as possible, but I can’t put myself at risk.”
“I’m very wary of things opening up,” says Maya Rath, who has remained rigid about sheltering in place with her husband, Jonathan Ring, at their home in Piedmont. “The way this thing is going to die is by everybody just staying in and not doing their regular activities.”
Rath and Ring have an adult son at home with ulcerative colitis, a form of inflammatory bowel disease treated by an immunosuppressant that makes him susceptible to a poor COVID19 outcome. They have given up seeing their friends in person or even going to the grocery store. They have all their groceries delivered and sanitize them in the backyard before bringing them in.
They realize that what we know about the transmission of the virus has evolved since March — that surface contact is of less concern than aerosols in unventilated spaces — but the virus is so new that they are wary of letting down their guard while there are still so many unknowns.
“I come from a family of physicians,” Ring says. “I’ve been brought up to pay attention to science and listen to the people who know. I’ve been getting all my information from people who I trust and not people who have a vested interest, like businesses and airlines.”
Their older son is in Washington, D. C., but they decided it is not safe for him to come home.
“We have a friend who works as a virologist at UCSF and he said he wouldn’t fly,” Rath says. “It’s frustrating, because how many opportunities would we have for the four of us to be together for an extended period like this?”
Ring, who is a brass player with the San Francisco Symphony, has also put his career on hold.
“When I see people who are out walking around and not wearing masks, I think the longer you do that the longer you’re keeping me from going back to work,” he says.
Only recently, House started going to the Safeway down the street, but only once or twice a month.
“That is my big adventure,” she says, adding that she buys as much as possible during each visit to minimize the number of times she has to go. “I never spent so much in my life.”
An avid dancer, she now