This is a reporter's notebook column by investigative reporter Daniel Connolly, who was working a breaking news shift the day the first COVID-19 case was announced in Shelby County. It was March 8, 2020, a Sunday morning, and the editor called my cell phone. "Are you at the press conference?" he said. I paused, and said, "I wasn't aware that there was a press conference." Moments later, I was running to my car. We had been hearing about the virus for weeks, but it was always something that affected some other place, like China or Seattle. We had heard a Memphis hospital was already treating an infected patient, but we couldn't confirm it.