There is no getting away from the fact that It will always be some anniversary of the pandemic. First presumptive cases. Masks. Vaccines. This week brings a milestone of the COVID-19 outbreak that, thankfully, already looks like the distant past. This week three years ago, CHS visited a dark Broadway and Pike/Pine as bars and restaurants closed and businesses locked up under some of the first restrictions of the pandemic.
“Monday night, CHS found a very quiet Capitol Hill,” we reported March 17th, 2020. “In 48 hours, the neighborhoods of Central Seattle transformed from warily busy pockets of activity to a state of battened down storefronts and handwritten signs imploring ‘we’re still open.’ The Comet Tavern was covered in plywood and coffee shop patrons lined up one by one, spread out as much as possible, for a warm cup on yet another weird day of COVID-19.”
Three years later, official tallies show 50 COVID-19 deaths across Capitol Hill and the Central District and more than 21,000 reported cases. The true numbers are surely higher. And it could have been much worse.
The restaurants, bars, and shops of Capitol Hill are back open now and the lights are back on. In March of 2020, it wasn’t clear if that would happen in days, years, or, ever.
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