A doctor just starting a new shift checks in on an intubated patient on a ventilator inside the Covid-19 ward at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital on July 16, 2020. Doctors report that Covid-19 patients on ventilators don’t spend the standard few days on the machines, they spend a few weeks.
California Conservation Corps members can be seen through a fence at Asilomar Conference Center, where passengers from the Grand Princess Cruise ship potentially exposed to Covid-19 are quarantined, work next to tents that have been put up within the quarantined area on March 15.
Deidre Shay, a nurse at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, wears a PAPR—a powered air-purifying respirator—while working in the room of a Covid-19 patient on July 16, 2020. The nurses write information about patients on the windows that is then transcribed by a nurse outside of the room.
An ICU nurse going off shift at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital (right) reviews the chart of an intubated patient with an ICU nurse coming onto a new shift on July 16, 2020. There is a 1-to-1 nurse-to-patient ratio for those on ventilators. For Covid-19 patients not on ventilators, there’s a 2-to-1 ratio. One nurse goes inside the room while another, called their buddy, stands outside and transcribes information for the patient’s records.
Dr. Casey Grover, an Emergency Room Doctor at Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, gowns up before entering a Covid-19 triage tent outside of the hospital on April 1, 2020. With personal protective equipment in limited supply, he tries to make what he has last by sanitizing his hands before putting on a gown and gloves and continuing to sanitize gloves between patients, rather than grabbing new ones every time. Many doctors in the hospital are also wearing the same mask for their entire 10- to 12-hour shifts.
Betsy Intravia, a nurse at CHOMP, prepares to go into a patient’s room in the ICU on July 20, 2020. Among the data points that allow California counties to advance reopening is availability of PPE.
Nurse Maria Kocsar inside one of the respiratory triage tents at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula on April 1, 2020.
A green khaki cot, a hard plastic folding chair and a small pile of folded bed linens—a gray blanket and white sheets—are the only furnishings inside the 10-by-10-foot cubicles in the Monterey County Fairgrounds buildings. Buildings throughout the grounds have been repurposed as an alternative housing site for people who may need to isolate due to Covid-19, but lack housing of their own or adequate space to isolate.
After finishing a day of harvesting, about 30 migrant workers working for Fresh Harvest lined up for a training on Covid-19 safety procedures from Natividad medical residents in Salinas, Calif. on April 28, 2020.
A couple wearing masks walks by a masked statue of Ed Ricketts on Cannery Row in Monterey, Calif. two days after Monterey County’s shelter-in-place order was announced on Sept. 17, 2020.
Jordan and Tyler Smith live with their 6-month-old son in Monterey. Jordan is a stay-at-home mom and just days before the shelter-in-place order went into effect, Tyler started a digital marketing job, allowing him to work from home.
“Tyler’s job lends itself well to remote work, and we were lucky to already have a good PC set up,” Jordan says. “But our place is tiny, so we’re all a bit underfoot of each other, and I have to rush the baby out of the room when he gets Zoom calls from his boss or clients.”
Eighty-two-year-old Joan Brophy Thomas organizes bags of food put together by volunteers with Love Our Central Coast on July 22, 2020. The organization was founded in 2016, but when Covid-19 hit, they began focusing heavily on feeding the homeless around the Monterey Peninsula.
At the Whaling Station Steakhouse in Monterey, diners eat in a tent owner Kevin Phillips has dubbed the “Prime Pavillion” in the parking lot behind the restaurant where they serve customers while indoor dining is prohibited due to Covid-19 on Aug. 7, 2020.
Patrick Dunne poses for a portrait outside his home in Salinas, Calif. on July 20, 2020. On his first night on the Covid-19 floor at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, Patrick Dunne, 75, wasn’t sure he would make it. He credits the staff with helping him to pull through.
Ray Wineman sits outside of his RV in the parking lot at Roberts Lake on July 15, 2020. Wineman is one of approximately 40 homeless residents who’ve called the location home since the start of the pandemic, when officials in Seaside, Calif. designated the area as a place they could shelter-in-place, opting to suspend enforcement of the city’s no-camping ordinance.
Jeremy Turner was working as a carpenter in Southern California when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. He went without work until mid-April when he got a job as an ice shoveler on Wharf 2 in Monterey.
Farmworkers harvest lettuce in Salinas, Calf. on May 5, 2020, using protective measures to reduce the spread of Covid-19, including wearing masks and newly installed vinyl dividers on the lettuce harvesting machine.
Guests dine in with an ocean view at The Fish Hopper on Sunday, June 7. After twelve weeks of being ordered shut, restaurants in Monterey County opened briefly for dine-in services but were forced to close again due to the rising number of Covid-19 cases.
Volunteers with Love Our Central Coast drop off bags of food to homeless residents living in the parking lot of Roberts Lake in Seaside, Calif. on July 14, 2020.
People wait in line at Dorothy’s Place in Salinas, Calif. staggered along red tape markers to maintain six feet between them, to pick up breakfast on March 29, 2020.
Shoppers walk by empty shelves in a grocery store in Seaside, Calif. after masses of people panic bought groceries early in the Covid-19 pandemic.
Being served food by someone in a mask while dining out will likely be the new normal for the foreseeable future. Andres Alvarez, sous chef at Villa Azteca, presents a plate of enchiladas with mole de frutas and pico de gallo.
Impromptu dance parties and hiding in forts are regular occurrences at the Bachmann-Berlin, Sotto Mayor household. Last spring the families were brought under one roof by unusual circumstances. Now, they’re learning how to make life work as their home has become an office, a school and a daycare during shelter-in-place.