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Then and Now

Metro Vancouver in the first weeks of the pandemic and today
A jogger in a grey hoodie, black shorts and running shoes crosses an otherwise deserted three-lane street in Vancouver.
A man crosses an empty street in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia on Tuesday, March 24, 2020.Ben Nelms/CBC
CBC News Photos by Ben Nelms Mar. 18, 2023

In the first weeks and months of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of the world was plunged into a bizarre state of emptiness.

Traffic stopped on the road and in the sky. Vibrant city streets went silent overnight. Winding lines of people replaced cars in parking lots, spaced apart like dashes on cobbled maps.

CBC News staff photographer Ben Nelms was in the field from the beginning, documenting a new reality of pandemic-era restrictions in scenes around Metro Vancouver.

Three years later, Nelms went out to reshoot the same places — recreating those images in the first spring without those restrictions.

Empty cardboard boxes are all that's left on white grocery store shelves.
Empty shelves are pictured at a Real Canadian Superstore in Richmond, B.C., on March 17, 2020, less than a week after the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Rolls of paper towel and toilet paper fill store shelves.
The same grocery store shelves on March 14, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Park swings with an ocean view are blocked with yellow tape.
Swings are taped off at a park in Vancouver on March 24, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
People walk past a park with swings at the waterfront. One child plays in the swing.
The same park on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
A man jogs across an empty street in downtown Vancouver on March 24, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
People and cars flow normally through the same street in Vancouver on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Another man crosses an empty street in downtown Vancouver on March 24, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Traffic is pictured as normal on the same downtown Vancouver street on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Customers wait in line to enter a Real Canadian Superstore in Vancouver on March 25, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
A worker at the same Superstore returns carts abandoned in the parking lot to the storefront on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Health-care workers provide COVID-19 Pfizer vaccines at a drive-thru clinic at Central Park in Burnaby, B.C., on March 26, 2021. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The parking lot at Central Park on March 10, 2023, after the province dismantled the clinics. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
A temporary traffic sign pictured at the side of the road in Burnaby, B.C., on March 26, 2020, was repurposed to remind people to wash their hands. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The same road in Burnaby on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
A pedestrian walks past a boarded-up Aritzia store on Robson Street in Vancouver on March 30, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The same Aritzia store on a bustling Robson Street on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
A woman waits for a bus on a near-empty Robson Street in Vancouver on March 30, 2020, less than two weeks into the first round of restrictions on gathering. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The same bus stop on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Shoppers line up between pallets to encourage physical distancing outside a Costco in Burnaby, B.C., on April 21, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Cars have replaced the pallets and line-ups in the same parking lot on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Catherine Houston pushes her mother, Margaret MacDonald, outside during a surprise visit by friends and the Vancouver Police Department's mounted unit to celebrate her 102nd birthday outdoors in Vancouver on April 28, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The same building on March 10, 2023. Gatherings have long returned to normal, with celebrations like birthday parties allowed indoors again. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Hundreds of people wait in line hoping to get a COVID-19 Pfizer vaccination during a pop-up clinic at Newton Athletic Park in Surrey, B.C., on April 27, 2021. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
An empty Newton Athletic Park on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Hockey players put on their gear in designated areas during the first day of the Burnaby Winter Club ice rink reopening in Burnaby, B.C., on May 6, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The Burnaby Winter Club on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Essential workers line up outside the Vancouver Convention Centre during the earliest days of the province's largest COVID-19 vaccination clinic on May 7, 2021. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The seawall outside the convention centre is seen as normal on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Workers take down plywood boards painted with murals covering up entrances of retail stores on Robson Street as the first round of restrictions neared an end in Vancouver on May 11, 2020. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Shoppers pass the same store on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
Friends and families meet on 0 Avenue, at the international border between Canada and the United States, in Aldergrove, B.C., on Aug. 19, 2020. The shared border was closed to non-essential travellers in March 2020 and wouldn't reopen again for 19 months. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The same part of the border line is pictured on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
People walk through morning fog in Vancouver, on Oct. 7, 2020, more than six months into the COVID-19 pandemic. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
The same street is seen without the fog in Vancouver on March 10, 2023. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
About the Author
Ben Nelms
Ben Nelms

Ben Nelms is an award-winning photojournalist based in Vancouver, B.C.
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