Tales of the city: locked-down life in San Francisco

Two months into lockdown in San Francisco and my acquaintances are puzzled. Our city, at first a west-coast epicentre of the Covid-19 pandemic, and its wider area has registered fewer than 600 coronavirus deaths to date; in New York and the surrounding area, that figure is more than 44,000.

Granted, New York’s population is bigger — but only by about tenfold. Infection rates are similarly low compared with other US cities. Every death is a tragedy. But do San Francisco’s comparatively low rates reflect the success of a stay-at-home order to citizens that came earlier? Or is it weather-related? A less virulent strain? Demographics? “There must be something else,” a friend mused over Zoom.

We each have our theories. Mine are more qualitative than any data-driven Silicon Valley type would be comfortable with.

Since leaving London last year to become a foreign correspondent here, I have observed an edgy tech community that flirts at its fringes with doomsday prepping, extreme health fads and transhumanism — the philosophy that technology can be used to help humans evolve beyond their current physical and mental constraints.

The earnestness, sincerity and self-belief that build start-ups and internet monopolies morph into a paranoid survivalist instinct when things look grim.

By February, the same people who embraced ketogenic diets and ice-bath rituals had parsed the data coming out of China and were avoiding handshakes and conferences (some were derided in the press for being too precious).

Friends in these circles pressed me to buy a mask early on. One stocked up on 500 viral and antibody tests; another, a hefty supply of hydroxychloroquine, the antimalarial drug taken by President Trump, which a recent study suggested was likely to be ineffective against Covid-19.

The Valley’s wealthiest spruced up their apocalypse bunkers, I am told, and investigated the cost of running an “ICU for one”, just in case.

Then the sentiment reached corporate level. In early March, the big tech groups — Facebook, Google and Apple — competed to send workers home before the words “shelter-in-place” had even entered our lexicon. All “out of an abundance of caution”, they stressed.

The wealthy spruced up their apocalypse bunkers and investigated the cost of an ICU for one

On the day one of my housemates, a big-tech employee, was offered the option to work from home, he shrugged it off and chose to head valiantly into the office. When he arrived, he found the building was all but empty. He has not been back since.

Even during the recent 10,000-strong protests here over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, masks were dutifully worn by all. On street corners, they were handed out for free, along with hand sanitiser and gloves.

Jarring contrasts

San Francisco’s tech tribe may be dominant, but the city is not homogenous — and neither are the effects of the pandemic. The tech boom has led to inequality and gut-wrenching homelessness. Even within my district, the central Latin neighbourhood known as the Mission, the contrasts are jarring.

The south-eastern part is commonly cast as San Francisco’s answer to Shoreditch — a ritzy hipster haven sprinkled with thrift stores, yoga studios and frozen-yoghurt cafés. Before the pandemic, twentysomethings with unusually small rucksacks would whizz to their next meet-up on electric scooters.

But venture just a few blocks north, where I live, and you will find a slice of Mexico City; taquerias, laundromats and roadside fruit-sellers set against a backdrop of bright graffiti murals.

Walking to work, way back when, I would turn on to a main street and the Twin Peaks hills would suddenly reveal themselves on the horizon, lit up in the California sun. Far closer, a pair of trainers slung over telephone wires; a row of tents lining the pavement.

Recently, my postcode was singled out as having the highest number of coronavirus cases in the city, which the mayor attributed to the high number of Latino families living in “crowded conditions” without “sufficient support to stay home and reduce their outings”.

I have a chosen family. The influx of tech wealth and correspondingly expensive housing left me with a decision when I arrived in the Bay Area; pay an average monthly rent of nearly $4,000 for a one-bedroom flat, or take my chances in shared housing.

I am not alone in choosing the latter. Co-living is the only way for many in their twenties, thirties and even forties in San Francisco. One friend rented a windowless room in a 69-person “hacker house”, complete with gaming and party rooms, for more than $1,500 a month, until she could take no more.

My set-up has been more comfortable: alongside three gregarious Americans and a Frenchman (all working in tech) in a four-bedroom apartment with high ceilings, a well-stocked booze cabinet and overflowing bookcases. What none of us signed up for, of course, was being confined indoors together indefinitely.

Tensions at home

A family of housemates has a delicate, largely untested balance. There is no designated leader or parent who calls the shots. Most tend towards democratic processes for big decisions, but emotions must be kept in check. You cannot yell at a housemate one moment and forget the petty dispute the next, as you can with a sibling.

In my house, growing pains came the week leading up to lockdown. Through my daily work as a journalist, I had picked up on the signs and began to — rather anxiously and repeatedly — voice dread over the pandemic that was about to come. I was being unbearable. And my housemates were not yet ready to hear it.

I heard about flare-ups over questions such as whether to put a timer in bathrooms for handwashing

When the order finally came, it was almost a relief. Passive aggression died away. We were on the same page! We needed an action plan!

A fairly haphazard house-governance regime became more regimented. Tinned tuna, bleach and a cheap indoor-exercise bike were purchased. Though a proposed month indoors seemed like a lifetime, we aspired to be model citizens.

Those in more extreme cohabitation situations — many bigger houses boast careful selection processes and group philosophies such as “mutually assured emancipation” — went through a more dramatic reckoning.

I heard about flare-ups over questions such as how much money to dedicate to the stockpile of food; whether to separate quarantine areas for the suspected sick, order extensive sterilisation for interaction in communal areas or put a timer in bathrooms for handwashing.

Kevin Bruce, 58, who lives in a six-person shared living space for formerly incarcerated people, said the lockdown was initially deeply damaging to “the social structure” of his house. “For someone like me . . . it felt like we were going to go back to prison. I rebelled against [the changes] — but then realised the house was doing this out of love and respect not just for me, but for everyone involved,” he said.

Others echoed this sense of camaraderie. Fidel Cervantes, 28, living in a large hacker house with dozens of others, talked warmly of the “compassion” he witnessed. “If people do get sick, [others] will be willing to bring them food and get them things they need.”

For the first time, my house has started to sit down to dinner together regularly. We have celebrated two lockdown birthdays, with dressing up and cocktails. We started a book club and we are finally making good use of our back yard on sunny weekends.

Still, our commitment to take this in our stride started to fray as the weeks dragged on. During one fraught exchange, I implored a housemate over WhatsApp to be less sensitive; it is taxing for everyone, I said, and I would rather not waste time bickering.

“No one is bickering,” he said calmly. “I AM!!!” I replied, before hastily adding, “That was a joke.”

“I still know what humour is,” he deadpanned, from the other room. The spat was over.

How to brave the new world?

The transition out of lockdown will be less smooth. Each one of us has a different tolerance for risk. Some may want to venture out sooner — to work, to friends and lovers, to normality; others may be more guarded. When and how is it safe to widen our bubble of interaction without complacency?

In recent weeks, there has been a palpable shift in the city’s mood, a sense that we are through the worst. San Francisco’s peaceful protests, some of which took place in the Mission district, encouraged many to brave the crowds for the first time, albeit with masks. Big groups are beginning to fill parks and outdoor restaurants.

My house held a meeting to establish who we thought was trustworthy enough among our friends to join our social bubble. But how do we control who those friends hang out with? And their friends’ friends? In the end, we agreed to talk openly.

The World Health Organization says there may never be a vaccine — we may have to adapt to life with the virus in the background. Navigating how to live based on the physical and mental wellbeing of others could last for years.

For a glimpse into the future of socialising, who better to look to than the futurists already braving it? Intriguingly, the paranoid preppers, many of whom have a libertarian streak, are among those now clamouring for a reopening, albeit with all the modifications, drugs and testing that tech can deliver.

One friend who moves in those circles invited me to a clandestine party in her Mission warehouse recently. I politely declined — out of an abundance of caution. But she later filled me in on the details over text message.

Guests wore masks and gloves and were tested for the virus on entry with her black-market kits. The dance floor had markings to ensure people stayed 6ft apart. Eventually, the police arrived after her building manager complained.

But attendees left reinvigorated, she said, each with a goody bag containing a 250mg dose of chloroquine and some popping candy.

Hannah Murphy is an FT technology correspondent

This story was amended on June 28 to clarify that the San Francisco coronavirus death statistics relate to the area of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland. They were taken from the Combined Statistical Area measure, as indicated in the chart source.

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