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AuthorSan Jose Mercury News video editor Randy Vazquez.  (Patrick Tehan/Bay Area News Group)
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One month ago, on a normal Monday, the Bay Area enacted an unprecedented, first-in-the-nation shelter in place order — one that would confine millions of residents to their homes with exceptions for essential work, food or other needs.

At the time, Stacey Silva, a mother in Gilroy, stood in the ICU hallway, behind two sets of glass doors, watching as her father died of coronavirus in an isolation ward.

In Dublin, Aaditya Patel, a fifth-grader, left school without knowing he would not return for the year or say goodbye to his friends and teachers at Golden View Elementary again.

B’Jon Couther, an aspiring football player from San Leandro, was training in Miami, before the shutdown brought him home and the virus killed a relative.

David Garcia, a barber in San Jose, would decide to quarantine himself from his son in order to keep earning money, paying bills and providing for his child.

Guadalupe Zamora, a patient service representative conducting essential work in a medical office and living with her mother in Union City, would choose to protect her 64-year-old mom’s health by packing her bags and temporarily moving in with her brother in Niles.

One month into the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place order, these five residents opened their windows and let us peer into their lives as 8 million others across the region’s 10 counties endure the historic COVID-19 pandemic.