Thread by @SeanPMeans, In February, I got assigned to cover a Utah Department of Health [...]

In February, I got assigned to cover a Utah Department of Health news conference, in which the state’s epidemiologist, Dr. Angela Dunn, talked about how the state was getting ready for the potential that a virus was coming to the States.
1/14

It was one of those luck-of-the-draw assignments. My main goal was to explain the science so everyone (including me) could start to understand it.

It was one of the first times we covered the novel coronavirus, or the COVID-19 disease it caused, in The Salt Lake Tribune.
2/14

A month later, I’m at a jazz concert, listening to a singer I had interviewed in a coffee shop a few days previously.

As the show is about to start, my Twitter feed is exploding. The Utah Jazz’s game in Oklahoma City is being canceled, because Rudy Gobert had COVID-19.
3/14

We all know what happened next: The world shut down. Bars, sports events, music venues, dance, the symphony, the opera, movie theaters, everything. The kids’ film festival my wife was helping to run closed down midway through the event.
4/14

That Saturday, I worked the weekend shift, and another news conference with Dr. Dunn - still in person. (That didn’t last long; soon, such briefings were done by Zoom.) Utah had its first community-spread case (a case they couldn’t trace to someone who was traveling).
5/14

That same day, I zipped up to Park City, where that case was reported. I saw people in hazmat gear sanitizing the bar where the guy who got COVID-19 worked.

I went back to the newsroom and filed my story. It would be the last time for months I worked out of the newsroom.
6/14

For awhile, every reporter was writing about COVID-19, because it took over every beat. The virus took away the arts I wrote about, the games our sports reporters covered, and so on. COVID-19 was the story. (With exceptions, like the earthquake on March 18.)
7/14

When things settled down a bit, two reporters took on the brunt of our COVID-19 coverage: Erin Alberty and Nate Carlisle. They did amazing work, investigating the state government’s response and telling the human side of the pandemic. I helped them where I could.
8/14

When Nate left the Tribune a few months ago, I ended up doing more to backstop Erin. Now, especially with the vaccine rollout, we’re the two-headed anti-virus monster, and most mornings we (guided by our stellar editor, Sheila McCann) figure out how to break down the story.
9/14

Of course, it wasn’t just Erin and Nate, or Erin and me. The coronavirus still touches everything, and everyone at the Tribune has had a hand in covering it. (Special mention to Andy Larsen, for his deep dives into the data.)
10/14

With 2020 ending, I’ve been thinking how we at The Tribune have worked to cover all aspects of the pandemic. The science. The politics. The hits on students, the elderly, people working from home or forced to keep working in factories, stores and hospitals.
11/14

And we have been focused on the hundreds of thousands of Utahns who have contracted this disease, the 1,200-plus who have died from it, and everyone who has been touched by it in some way - which is everyone.
12/14

COVID-19 is the most important news story of our lives. It’s the hardest story I’ve ever covered. It’s also been rewarding in so many ways - stretching my talents and educating me about aspects of journalism I’ve admired in my colleagues but never thought I could do, too.
13/14

We also know the work isn’t done, because the pandemic isn’t done.

My hope in 2021 is that a time will come when we won’t have to write about COVID-19 every day. But I know we will keep at it as long as we need to.
14/14

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