Coronavirus closed our newsroom for the first time in 155 years, but has not slowed our work.

Here’s the thing about journalists: We run toward a crisis.

When a wildfire ignites, we suit up in protective gear and head toward the flames. We run to the site of shots fired. We pull out riot gear and march alongside volatile crowds.

No matter what the disaster, our newsroom gets fuller, more bustling, when a big breaking news story strikes. Except for this one.

For what I believe is the first time in our 155-year history, we shuttered The Chronicle’s newsroom starting Thursday, and everyone decamped to home offices. We now hold our news meetings via video conferencing and alert our website’s home-page producers about scoops on Slack. We screenshare the day’s photography and email mock-ups of the front page. The bustle is still there — it has just moved online.

Across social media and on many cable news networks, you’ve probably heard people complain that “the media” are stirring up fears about the coronavirus pandemic to _____. Fill in the blank with: sell newspapers, hurt President Trump’s re-election chances, scare elderly people, boost ratings, etc.

As in other many crises, we forge ahead in spite of such noise. But in this context, these alarmist criticisms seem incredibly creepy — and dangerous. This is the biggest news story in a generation, and it has never been so important to get clear, dispassionate and accurate information from legitimate news sources. (Translation: Not from your favorite Instagrammer or a cousin’s Facebook post.)

That’s why it was a hard decision to

order everyone to stay away from their desks. Our work is extremely collaborative. Reporters can’t work without editors; print page designers rely on copy editors; home page producers need the work of graphic artists. Then there are the journalists who can’t stay at home — the photographers and videographers who record the images of unfolding crises and reporters who cover the hospitals, clinics, travelers, struggling service workers and other people on the front lines.

It’s critical that we be there to make sure that you have the information you need to make decisions about what’s right for your family and for your community. Journalists put our personal needs aside during these times to make sure you have a news source to rely upon. We take immense pride in that, and it will never change.

But my thinking about how we show that changed last week after a conference call with other editors from around the country, including Michele Matassa Flores, the editor of the Seattle Times. In Washington state, more than 30 people have died in the growing pandemic.

There are two reasons we need to be careful as journalists, she said: First, we can be vectors in our own communities, unwittingly spreading COVID-19 as we seek to provide exhaustive coverage.

Second, if the virus rips through your newsroom, she said, you threaten your ability to provide news at all, which could be something even more potentially dangerous to the long-term community health.

“Tell your newsrooms: Do not underestimate this virus,” Flores said.

Many things are going to change over the next few weeks. The newspaper will get thinner as advertisers stop promoting concerts and there are no performances to review. The sports section will shrink because there are no games to cover. We will be diverting resources to covering what we know — and admitting what we don’t know — about this virus, the status of testing and any treatments. One thing will not change. Whether we are recording podcasts from under a sound-dulling blanket fort (yes, I did that), conducting interviews in a child’s closet among stuffed animals (as reporter Matthias Gafni did), or updating the live updates story while batting away a persistent cat (thanks, Lauren Hernández), we will do everything we can to ensure we provide you with the news now and well after the crisis is over.