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A reporter's perspective: How life has changed in the time of COVID-19

A week in the life of Denver during COVID-19. Never before has the city looked quite like this. How has your life changed in a week?

DENVER — How has life changed for you in the last week? The last month? Go up high, and the differences in Denver are obvious. See them for yourself in the video above. Below, 9Wants to Know reporter Chris Vanderveen reflects on the changes in his own life, and in our newsroom.

As I sit in a mostly empty newsroom on a Friday evening, I realize life within this newsroom might never be the same.

It’s been this way the entire week.

Mostly empty.

Which, perhaps, is a good way to describe how I’m feeling right now.

To suggest this has been a tough week for me would be an understatement. For a variety of reasons, I have left work every day this week wondering if I can make it to the next day.

I have covered fires, floods, hurricanes, snowstorms, and mass shootings; safe to say I have never covered anything quite like this.

Our crews in the field have worked their tails off to bring you the news this week. I feel for them the most. Ever since we started having people work remotely, we have struggled to best deal with the precarious circumstances of the moment.

The hub of any news operation is the newsroom, and this week we’ve barely filled it with a handful of people.

Everyone else has worked from their homes or from cars. Reporters have been relegated to interview via Skype or Facetime or Zoom or whatever kind of technology they can use to keep them safe from the dangers of a virus we can neither see nor sense.

I miss the hustle and bustle of a normal newsroom. I bet the people who are working outside of it right now feel the same thing.

This is not to say I feel defeated.

Honestly, in many ways, it feels empowering. I have said for months that I love being a journalist.

I still do. Probably more now than ever. Our stories have proven to be a critical lifeline for a community filled with people who have questions.

But it’s still challenging.

Someone called the newsroom the other day asking for help. She was disabled and her home needed internet service so her daughter could attend classes virtually with the rest of her classmates.

She was in tears.

By the end of the call, so was I.

The truth is we don’t have answers to all the questions are viewers now have. I have many of the same questions.

I want to know when this will all end. I want to know when we can go outside and join with family and friends and not feel uneasy about a handshake or a hug.

I want to know when I can safely go back into the home of my mother.

I want to know when I can go back to a life like it was before this damn virus invaded it.

And I want to know when we can fill this newsroom back up again.

It’s far too empty right now.

I’m keeping my distance. Washing my hands. Constantly.

But I’d like to know when our jumbled lives can start to feel a little less jumbled.

I doubt I’m alone in that thought.

Take care. Watch out for neighbors who might need supplies.

And, for heaven’s sake, be kind to one another. Every single one of us is struggling right now.

Whether we work in a mostly empty newsroom or not.

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