Grim news comes home with Stanislaus County’s first coronavirus death
Zero.
By definition, it signifies nothing. But for four tense, life-changing weeks, that number has symbolized so much more to us here in Stanislaus County. It meant no one had died, not here anyway.
On March 11 — 11 days after the United States’ first announced coronavirus death — we registered our first positive test in Stanislaus County. Scary? Maybe. Certainly predictable. But we took some comfort in the second figure, the one showing COVID-19 deaths here at that point: zero.
That first week ended with only two positive tests, and zero deaths. The next week opened with news of a third case; everyone knew that number would climb, and it did. We finally hit double digits on March 25, six days after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s stay-home order shocked California, and the nation. But our death toll remained zero.
By that time, COVID-19 was ravaging Western Europe, India was locked down and the 2020 Olympics had been put off for a year. And on March 26, the United States took over as the most infected country on the planet. President Donald Trump signed the $2-trillion stimulus bill on March 27, when our Stanislaus cases ticked up to 23. But our death count did not budge.
On April 3, with the virus killing thousands in New York, the Centers for Disease Control urged all Americans to wear face masks in public. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved into intensive care on April 6, the day after our much smaller neighbor to the south — Merced County — suffered its first COVID-19 death. San Joaquin County, to our north, had already recorded deaths in the double digits, 11. Stanislaus cases ballooned to 71, but our death toll stubbornly stood at zero.
Zero, we could count on. All other numbers climbed and climbed: 103 positive cases by Thursday, and 2,100 negative. Stanislaus leaders even began reporting recoveries — 59. But that familiar, faithful, resolute and reliable death count refused to move.
Zero.
We weren’t exactly cocky. We knew it couldn’t last. But as long as we had zero deaths, we at least had something to reassure us that not all was lost.
Sure, our economy was tanking. Our schools were closed, people were out of work, bills were mounting, nerves were on edge and domestic violence edged up. But we could count on zero, the steadfast Stanislaus death toll that never seemed to change while everything else did.
Zero, we could live with. Zero gave us hope, made us feel that we were somehow special, a place apart, maybe even protected, during four tense, life-changing, world-altering weeks.
Then came April 10, Good Friday, with the bad news we dreaded but always knew would come.
One.
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 7:20 PM.
