Sydney Brownstone was in the newsroom at The Seattle Times, monitoring the police scanner for any activity and planning to spend the day, Feb. 29, working on an upcoming article. Then came an email saying someone had died at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, an assisted-living facility about 20 minutes to the northeast. Journalists began streaming into the newsroom. In January, when the first person in the United States got sick — in nearby Snohomish County — the newsroom began preparing, making a spreadsheet listing all members of the staff and what they would need to work from home. Soon after the news broke on Feb. 29, the staff realized that this wasn’t just a one-off story.

Source: New York Times March 16, 2020 15:22 UTC