Lifeguard Jacob Ruthardt works a shift as several swimmers take part in lessons at Juniper Swim & Fitness Center in Bend.

For weeks, the threat of COVID-19 seemed distant, a crisis associated with datelines that stretched from China to Seattle, but not in Central Oregon. Then, with the diagnosis Wednesday of the region’s first presumptive case of the potentially fatal coronavirus, followed by the statewide closure of schools the next day, daily life changed entirely.

Events were canceled as fast as emailed announcements could be sent. Community programs were suspended to prevent the spread of the virus. Entertainment venues closed their doors. Hospital visitations were severely restricted, even for patients at the end of their life.

By Saturday morning, Bend felt like a ghost town. Streets were emptier than normal as residents coped with the pandemic fallout for a third straight day. Many went grocery shopping. In a world of uncertainty, shopping was something they could control — until the toilet paper ran out.

Although empty shelves were a common sight, shoppers said the experience was busy, but civil.

At Albertsons the produce counters were nearly picked clean. Shelves were also empty at Trader Joe’s, where customers stocked up on toilet paper. Grocery Outlet ran out of toilet paper Saturday morning but had plenty of bread. In an early morning Facebook post from Fred Meyer, the bread shelves were nearly empty there as well.

Thermometers were nearly sold out all over Bend.

Shopper Debra DeCarne, of Bend, felt frustration coming out of grocery stores and into a world ruled by coronavirus fear. Panic-fueled grocery trips make it difficult for people like her to do a normal grocery run, she said.

“We went to four stores to find a roll of toilet paper,” DeCarne said, exasperated in the Fred Meyer parking lot .

At Costco on Saturday afternoon, where earlier, lines of customers had stretched from cashiers to the other end of the huge store, employees wiped down shopping carts with sanitizer as customers arrived.

Outside the entrance stood a whiteboard with a list of items the store either no longer had or that were in short supply: rice, vinegar and frozen and canned vegetables — and of course, toilet paper.

Customer Nicky Clifton said stocking up is a way to protect the people around her. Clifton has 47-day-old twins in the neonatal intensive care unit at St. Charles Bend and another child with a heart condition.

In the Costco parking lot, the Prineville resident had a cart packed with diapers, tissues and vitamins.

“I’m not freaking out,” Clifton said. “But I’m cautious.”

At Juniper, ‘it’s quieter today’

The mood was lighter Saturday at the Juniper Swim & Fitness Center in Bend.

The pools and workout areas were mostly empty as a few people were getting in their last recreation before the facility closes Sunday evening for at least two weeks.

Bend Park & Recreation District is canceling all recreation programs and closing facilities, including Juniper, starting Sunday evening and will reassess the situation at the end of March. About 400 part-time employees will be reassigned to other jobs or will have to file for unemployment, according to the reaction district.

Ann Story, manager at the center, said all the fitness classes and swim lessons were going on as normal Saturday but with fewer people.

“It’s quieter today,” Story said. “But we are open through Sunday, and we are excited to have people down here.”

Bend resident Melinda Sather sat inside the fitness center Saturday with her 5-year-old daughter, Addison, as they watched Sather’s 2-year-old daughter, McKenna, take a swim lesson.

Fortunately it was McKenna’s last swim lesson in the five-week session, so she is not scheduled to go back while the center is closed, her mother said.

“We have bikes and other things at home,” Sather said. “We will just stay at home and do that and wash our hands.”

Sather is pregnant with her third daughter and due in 10 weeks. With all the closures and empty grocery store shelves from the coronavirus concerns, she worries what resources will be available to her when she delivers her daughter.

“I’m just thinking forward to how this is going to impact services and how am I going to have the proper nutrition and resources for the baby?” she said.

Sather is staying calm. Her oldest daughter, Addison, was born two weeks before the 2017 total solar eclipse that brought huge crowds and a drain on services to Central Oregon.

“We have gone through this once before,” Sather said, “but a little bit different circumstances.”

Melissa McPherson, a speech therapist at elementary and middle schools in Bend-La Pine, spent Saturday at a yoga class at the fitness center.

McPherson, who is already home from work after the schools closed, plans to get in one more yoga session Sunday before the center closes.

“I’m sad,” McPherson said. “This is my place. I’m here five to six times a week.”

Her yoga instructor left her with a suggestion Saturday to get her through the next couple of weeks without yoga classes.

“Our yoga instructor reminded us that there are thousands of yoga videos on YouTube, and to stay at home and do yoga on your own,” she said.

Retired Bend couple Richard and Carol Ann Thurston take a water aerobics class two to three times a week at the center.

After their class on Saturday, the couple said they will miss the exercise.

“We are disappointed, but we understand why they have to do it,” Carol Ann Thurston said.

The couple said they will mostly miss visiting with the other regulars in their class.

“For a lot of people, water classes are as much social as they are exercise,” Richard Thurston said.

For now, the couple will find other ways to stay active.

“Hopefully if it warms up a little bit we can get on our bikes,” Richard Thurston said. “Or we will go walking or find some place to hike.”