鈥淭his is not a permanent state,鈥� Newsom assured us at the time. 鈥淭his is a moment in time. And we will meet this moment together.鈥�
On Friday, that moment will have stretched 鈥� and stretched and stretched 鈥� into a year.
The changes that have racked Californians are big and small, obvious and subtle. We can mark them by the daily toll of this terrible virus, the days spent out of work or out of school. But also in the of empty beaches and baseball fields, the collection of face masks hanging on front-door knobs, the time we didn鈥檛 spend sitting in traffic, the odd hobbies we took up and the friends we miss.
All of these changes have left a data trail. In highway crash statistics, unemployment claims, anti-Newsom lawsuits and florist sales, the numbers present a 鈥渂efore鈥� and 鈥渁fter鈥� picture of these last surreal, lonely, heartrending, life-ending and life-altering 365 days.
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