Scenes from Silicon Valley: take a visual tour of the Peninsula’s Covid-19 response

by Magali Gauthier April 9, 2020 2016 Views

The line of hundreds of customers starts to move as Costco opens in Mountain View on the morning of March 15, 2020. The line serpentined through much of the parking lot. (Photo by Magali Gauthier)

Six Fifty/Palo Alto Weekly photographer Magali Gauthier puts on a corona-sweater to get the shot

Toss that day’s used masks and gloves in the garbage. Sanitize hands. Wipe down camera, laptop and car with disinfecting wipes. Remove sweater. Leave it in the car. Get inside the house. Wash hands. Wipe down door knobs, keys, phone and water bottle with even more disinfecting wipes. Laundry. Shower. Put on clean clothes.

Notices of cancelled public meetings pinned to a board outside City Hall, on March 18, 2020. (Photo by Magali Gauthier)

I do this every evening when I get off work. My routine probably doesn’t differ much from that of other essential workers who can’t work from home.

I’m a photojournalist working in the Bay Area. I spend every day capturing images of our community coping in the face of the novel coronavirus crisis. There’s the grocery store workers that are trying to keep safe. The parents with diminished incomes and more kids at home now. The restaurants that have switched to contactless take out orders. And the people trying to help their high-risk neighbors with everyday tasks.

Through my photos, I get to show readers more than the data popping out of our county public health departments. Instead, it’s on-the-ground imagery that reflects how our community is coping, as well as the all-too-unsung workers who are getting us through this crisis.

So here is a selection of photographed moments that demonstrate our resiliency, fear, kindness and determination through this crisis. Take a look….and stay safe….

Clockwise from top: Flora Sosa cleans the a shelf that holds peanut butter at Draeger’s Market in Menlo Park; A custodian cleans under a desk using a peroxide-based solution in a classroom at Palo Alto High School, on March 6; A VTA worker cleans the driver’s space on a bus at the Mountain View train station on March 18; James Wolf, an intake specialist for Dignity on Wheels, cleans and prepares a shower for a client on the mobile laundry and shower trailer out in front of Community Services Agency in Mountain View, on March 24. (Photos by Magali Gauthier)

Five people sit in a train car leaving Menlo Park train station heading northbound around 5 p.m. on March 13, 2020. (Photo by Magali Gauthier)

Clockwise from top: A teacher adds third grade homework packets to a box at a drive thru set up outside Gabriela Mistral Elementary in Mountain View on March 18; Stanford senior Jeffrey Chang, 21, packs up his belongings, readying himself to move back home to Cupertino after Stanford University asked students to leave campus if they are able in an effort to protect students from coronavirus in Palo Alto, on March 11; An empty classroom at Menlo-Atherton High School on March 16; A woman walks past a marquee outside Green Middle School that reads “Spread kindness not germs :),” in Palo Alto, on March 18. (Photos by Magali Gauthier & Sammy Dallal)

A customer walks by empty shelves of bath tissues at a Target in Mountain View on March 14, 2020. (Photo by Magali Gauthier)

Clockwise from top: Ada Braun shops at Bianchini’s Market in Portola Valley, on March 20; Fabian Berber hands a customer a bag of purchased food at Portola Valley’s new drive-thru farmers’ market: SAFE Market, on March 26, 2020. SAFE stands for Sanitary Allocation of Food Essentials. The market handed out 440 orders on its opening day, on March 26; Dianne Jenett, 72, listens to Sunita de Tourreil speak after she brought her a bag of groceries from Whole Foods Market in downtown Palo Alto on March 18, 2020. When de Tourreil drops off the groceries, the two friends chat while keep a safe amount of space between them; Taverna executive sous chef Kevin Nordloff places roasted chicken in to go containers in the Palo Alto restaurant’s kitchen, on March 17.(Photos by Sammy Dallal & Magali Gauthier)

Tom Culbertson, right, and his son Owen Longstreth, 16, make some noise by playing the vuvuzela to alert neighbors its time to come outside to do a “daily wave” where they step out to wave to each other at 6 p.m. in Palo Alto, on March 17. (Photo by Sammy Dallal)

Clockwise from top: Mark Comeau, the head embalmer at Spangler Mortuary, wears protective eyewear, a mask and a face shield to prep a body at the mortuary in Mountain View on April 7. Comeau said the main difference between the safety gear he wears now and that which he wore before the novel coronavirus crisis are the goggles under his face shield. He also wears a one-time-use full-body protective suit, though he used to typically wear a smock when preparing bodies; Jarrett, right, a lobby ambassador with El Camino Hospital screens a visitor part of the hospital’s efforts to screen visitors for potential coronavirus risk factors in Mountain View on March 3; Alyssa Weaver, a second year physician assistant student at Stanford School of Medicine, draws blood from a participant at a COVID-19 antibody testing site in Mountain View on April 4; a testing tent that resembles closely COVID-19 testing drive-thrus throughout the Bay Area in Menlo Park on March 20, 2020. Signage around the lot indicates the testing site is run by Stanford Health Care. Stanford did not confirm whether this site is being used to test patients for COVID-19. (Photos by Sammy Dallal & Magali Gauthier)

Howard Kushlan walks Miles, a dog that belongs to two local seniors, in Menlo Park on April 1. Kushlan has organized a group of volunteers that complete tasks like walking dogs for seniors and other community members at high risk during the coronavirus crisis. (Photo by Magali Gauthier)

Clockwise from top: An empty City Center Plaza in Mountain View, on the morning on March 18; An electronic marquee reads “DISINFECT 2 PROTECT / WASH YOUR HANDS” along southbound Highway 101 in Menlo Park on March 17; A group of people walk around Bedwell Bayfront Park by a very empty Bayfront Expressway in Menlo Park on March 19; The Stanford Theatre on University Ave in Palo Alto remains closed due to the coronavirus shelter in place order people are adhering too on March 18. (Photos by Magali Gauthier & Sammy Dalall)

A pedestrian wearing a mask crosses Castro Street the morning of March 18. (Photo by Magali Gauthier)

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