Bay Area life grinds to a halt as coronavirus anxiety builds

As restrictions on daily life become more intense amid COVID-19 fears, Bay Area residents are trying to adapt.

As worried shoppers strip store shelves bare and nearly everything grinds to a halt amid fears of spreading coronavirus, Bay Area residents are bracing for what could be weeks of uncertainty and major disruption to their daily lives.

With schools, workplaces and other public places shutting down and governments banning large gatherings, people are doing their best to adjust and plan for their new restrictive reality. Crowds of shoppers lined up outside Bay Area stores Saturday morning and quickly picked shelves clean of frozen foods, meat, bread and toilet paper — a rush of stocking up that reflects the rising collective anxiety of a region that has been at the center of the pandemic’s outbreak in the United States.

Meanwhile, parents scrambled to find ways to keep their kids and themselves from going crazy while trapped in the house with no work or school. And everyone tried to figure out just how much they should worry about the potentially deadly disease.

“The world’s a little upside down right now,” said John Kelble as he shopped at the Alemany Farmers Market in San Francisco on Saturday. “I’m not sure what to expect.”

Contra Costa County on Saturday became the latest to ban gatherings of 100 or more people as the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases rose to 29. San Mateo County took an even more restrictive step, prohibiting 50 or more people from congregating in a county that had 32 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of Saturday. In Santa Clara County, where public officials announced 17 more cases Saturday — bringing the total to 91 — large gatherings have been banned since Friday. San Francisco, with 28 cases as of Saturday, also is banning large gatherings, as is Alameda County, which had reported seven confirmed COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, public schools in San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Contra Costa counties have closed and won’t reopen for weeks, and Stanford and UC Berkeley each reported a confirmed COVID-19 case.

The uncertainty has driven some Bay Area residents to stock up on supplies. Chicken and beef were practically gone from a Smart and Final in Pleasanton, which has limited how much of certain items — like hand soap, pasta, instant ramen, rice and beans — shoppers can buy to stop people from hoarding.

A line of people holding umbrellas and pushing empty carts waited in the rain outside a Costco in South San Francisco. And another location of the warehouse store in Richmond pulled down the garage door at its entrance because it had already reached its capacity less than half an hour after opening.

For 35-year-old Steve Caples, the timing of the coronavirus panic couldn’t be worse. Caples moved to Oakland from Chico last week intending to find work as a bartender. But now that people are staying home, bars and restaurants around the region are cutting hours.

“It’s crazy,” he said. “It’s going to be very tough to get a job in the service industry.”

Caples had considered taking advantage of the situation by buying a plane ticket to New York for a vacation while prices are low. But he’s mindful of the risk. “I can’t shake hands with anybody over 60 after that because it could kill them,” he said.

A weather forecast predicting rain for most of the weekend and coming week compounded Bay Area residents’ frustration, by taking off the table the hikes and other outdoor activities they’d been looking forward to while everything else is closed.

“There’s not much I can do. I can’t really leave the house much anymore,” said 11-year-old Naomi Bloom of Pleasanton.

Her school, Mohr Elementary, is closed. So is the park near her house. Basketball and her school science fair have been canceled. On Saturday, she and her father were stocking up on books at the Oakland library’s Lakeview branch before it closes on Monday.

Zeke and Sarah Durantini, of Oakland, spent Saturday afternoon buying supplies to keep themselves and their family occupied during the shutdown — colored pencils and oil pastels for the kids, and the ingredients for mai-tais for mom and dad. Starting Monday, Zeke, who typically goes to work at Magnolia Brewing in San Francisco during the day, will transition to life as a stay-at-home dad and home-school teacher. School has been canceled for the couple’s second- and fourth-grade daughters, and Zeke will be working from home and leading them through their online lessons.

“It’s going to be a big adjustment for all of us, that’s for sure,” he said.

Zeke worries about how he’ll keep the kids active all day, but his plan is to stick to a schedule similar to their typical routine — including snack and play breaks during morning “recess.”

To get their social fix, on Sunday the Durantinis are planning a game of charades — not in person, but over Facetime — with some friends in San Francisco.

For Jason McNeely, a 37-year-old private tutor from New York, the coronavirus closures have put a damper on his Bay Area vacation. McNeely, who comes here every year to visit friends, was supposed to stay with a friend in San Francisco, but had to find new lodging after the elementary school his friend’s daughter attends shut down and advised students to self-quarantine for two weeks. Now he’s staying with another friend in Oakland, who also has kids that aren’t in school.

As a result, the vacation has turned into a “babysitting trip,” and adults-only long hikes or outings to restaurants are mostly off the table, McNeely said. It’s left him unsure how to occupy himself for the rest of the trip.

“It would be a shame to come to San Francisco, the Bay Area, and watch movies the whole time,” he said.

After President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested the government may restrict domestic travel, McNeely also worries he won’t be able to get home. He’s already reserved a rental car, just in case he can’t fly back to New York.

While many Bay Area residents were staying home Saturday, others were out and about supporting local businesses struggling during the coronavirus outbreak, or simply staving off boredom.

Dress shops, arcades and massage parlors at the Stores at Tanforan mall in San Bruno stood mostly empty as employees looked at their phones or wiped down tables.

For Natalia and Isaac Dacanay, the mall was a place to go now that their schools have closed and switched to take-home work. They said it was unusually empty for a Saturday.

“We’re kinda bored so we’re here to waste time,” Natalia said.

But 38-year-old Genevieve Hernandez, out running errands in Oakland, saw a silver lining.

“I’m kind of really just viewing it as a nice opportunity to spend extra time with the family,” she said.