Wednesday night would normally be full of elaborate, jubilant parties to celebrate the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
Under normal circumstances, many prominent California Democrats would have traveled to Washington D.C. to celebrate Oakland native Kamala Harris taking office as vice president. But the pandemic is forcing them to celebrate at home.
That includes one of Harris’ biggest supporters, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf.
"Traveling to Washington D.C. right now would not be essential travel for me,” she said.
“So the inauguration team helped many of us that are so sad to not be there in person and they set us an inauguration in a box… it was full of a bag of confetti, some cutouts of Kamala and Joe’s faces, some signs that say ‘unity’, some balloons, some champagne flutes with the inauguration logo on it and even a ceremonial ticket.”
Schaaf said while this is an inauguration she was very much looking forward to, missing the event was a necessary sacrifice given the state of the pandemic.
“I will be celebrating safely at home as we are asking everyone who has the ability to work from home to stay home, to not gather together. We are still in the worst of this pandemic."
It is a message echoed by many Bay Area leaders who say they are looking forward to having a stronger relationship with the Biden-Harris administration after being repeatedly vilified by Donald Trump.