On March 16 two years ago, my wife and I walked from Bath’s Dormann Library to Five Star Bank, completed our errand, and walked back. When we got there the library director was breaking the news that they had just been ordered to close down, that afternoon, and everybody should check out however many books they wanted. I grabbed some nice thick ones, and one last chai smoothie for the road from the library cafe.
Within days most everything was shut down, including the churches and the schools. I think most of us assumed it would be for a few weeks, or at most a few months. I don’t know anyone who dreamed we’d still be struggling with it (happily, at a lower level!) over two years later. I started keeping an ongoing chronicle, strictly of Steuben County COVID news, for future historians. I’m now up to 150 pages.
On March 18 Steuben County reported its first case, and Bath V.A. was soon taking advantage of its bridge across the Conhocton to strictly control access. Allegany County reported its first death on March 30th, Livingston on the 31st. On April 2nd, the first Steuben death was reported. In those early days three nursing homes drove the cases, and the deaths, in Steuben.
Toilet paper shortages prompted Angry Oven Pizza in Bath to offer a free roll with every delivery… while supplies lasted. Disinfectant was in short supply. Masking was urged or mandated, along with distancing, and strict washing regimes. President Trump responded erratically, at first insisting that no one would die, then later treating it as a serious public health crisis, mixed in with disdaining masks, blaming it on China, saying it was all a hoax to make him look bad, saying it would go away like magic, suggesting that we inject people’s lungs with bleach, and being hospitalized himself. Under his administration the “Operation Warp Speed” vaccine-devlopment program forged ahead, but his confused response overall probably killed whatever slim chance he had had in the fall election.
St. James Mercy Center opened its new hospital in the midst of a health crisis. With lower demand, farmers were dumping milk. People put up pictures of Easter eggs in their windows, so that children could spy them from the street. Parks and playgrounds were closed. County offices were closed. Businesses and service groups made or bought masks for free distribution, or turned to making disinfectant. Catholic Charities, Food Bank, and other agencies worked out ways to distribute needed food and clothing with minimal contact. Schools delivered lunches to their children. Hornell schools set up wifi hot spots throughout their district – many public libraries left theirs functioning, and accessible from the parking lots.
Limited reopening began on May 15, but the summer clobbered tourism, retail, and restaurants. The region shed jobs in thousands, and multiple businesses closed for good. But Corning Inc. announced that its Valor glass would be used for the vaccine vials, and Steuben County Fair kept its uninterrupted streak going with a drive-through fair, averaging 300 vehicles a day.
Steuben went over three months without a death, and schools reopened with hybrid arrangements… days on site, plus days on computer. Halloween was pretty quiet, but the November election went smoothly thanks to early voting, absentee ballots, and hygiene discipline at the polling places.
But as restrictions had come down, cases increased, with Steuben reaching 1000 by October 26. Three days later, a case in Almond meant that every municipality in Steuben had been affected. Deaths hit 100 (79 of them in nursing homes) by December 1, and by the 4th we had reached another thousand cases – in just over a month. Eight weeks after that, just as the vaccine was about the become available, we would have jumped from 2000 cases to 5000. By then we would also have 160 deaths.

(Our second installment, next week, will bring us up to date.)