At the beginning of the pandemic, Roberta Boyers, 69, was scared.

A simple trip to the grocery store had become a daring venture as coronavirus spread through Orange County.

Compounding the fear of becoming sick with COVID-19, was her loneliness as her active community went on strict lockdown. She waited out the pandemic alone in her Laguna Woods Village home.

The nearly 4-acre village for those 55 and older is home to more than 18,000 residents. Nestled in the Saddleback Valley, the active lifestyle community hosts more than 300 clubs, usually giving folks plenty of options for getting out and about. Golfers play about 140,000 rounds annually on the village’s two golf courses.

Most residents choose Laguna Woods Village because they want to plug into a more active life after retirement, making more friendships as they enter a new stage.

But that 55-plus age demographic also put them at tremendous risk as the coronavirus became a pandemic. The community that could have been ground zero for infection and deaths instead managed to stymie the virus’s spread within its gates – most of the city of Laguna Woods is the retirement community – keeping the number of cases down, especially compared to other areas in Orange County that didn’t have the same risk factors.

And now, some medical experts say they will take the lessons they learned caring for the village community with them for the future.

As of Friday, March 18, the OC Health Care Agency had recorded 544,844 cases of the coronavirus since testing began in the county – 1,052 have been in the city of Laguna Woods.

And while 6,088 coronavirus-related deaths have been reported among Orange County’s population aged 55 and older (death certificates can take weeks and even months to be recorded, the most recent death reported was March 13), in Laguna Woods, 74 deaths have been recorded – barely 1% of those who died in the county.

“It’s a group of seniors with many social activities that keep them close together,” Dr. Adam Solomon, chief medical officer of the Memorial Care Medical Foundation, said of Laguna Woods Village. “We could have seen a high death toll.”

“The community was at tremendous risk,” he said. “The average age was very high, and there is a strong relationship between age and death.”

Solomon credits the village’s management’s prompt action. Even before Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered statewide shutdowns and told people to stay home, village officials met in an emergency meeting and then-CEO Jeff Parker pushed for a local lockdown.

“He was right and it led to much lower rates than could have occurred otherwise,” said Eileen Paulin, spokeswoman for the village.

The community’s new CEO, Siobhan Foster, who was then Parker’s chief operating officer, recalls the crucial decision. “We were a vulnerable population because of age,” she said, “and had to take action.”

The community took things seriously. Residents wore their masks, kept socially distanced and rarely stepped out, mostly to get groceries at the nearby markets, some of which provided early morning hours for senior shoppers.

All clubs and activities were shut down. And, the village, once vibrant and bustling, became eerily silent with people hunkering down in their homes – some just in small condos.

Boyers said the loneliness of being on her own during the shutdown was almost worse than the fear she felt of the pandemic’s perils. Almost, because she had one outlet in the form of her 5-year-old Lipizzaner.

Stabled in the village’s equestrian center, the horse, Taormina, offered a little company.

“When the panic feeling settled, this was always a treat,” Boyers said, petting the elegant white horse’s muzzle during a visit this week. “Being here was very fulfilling, and it filled the cup and gave me a purpose.”

Dorothy Pacella, a member of one of the village’s most popular clubs, the Chicago Club, vividly recalls the day the village went dark on March 12, 2020. It was the day the club, a group with 400 members who gathered each month at Clubhouse 5 for music and shows, would have met.

“It was startling, weeks prior we’d heard about it,” Pacella, 72, said of news reports from areas earlier hit by the pandemic. “To experience the reality, it was like, ‘Oh my God, this is really serious.’

“We knew we were the most at risk because of our age,” she said of appreciation felt for the call to action by the village management. “We welcomed the urgency and protection.”

What made a difference, just about everyone said, was that community members cared about others, even if they weren’t that worried for themselves. There was a massive amount of sterilization, and everywhere people were spraying, wiping and sanitizing.

At The Towers, a community of two 14-story buildings with many who require extra care, residents were quarantined in their rooms. Meals were delivered to their doors.

Along with buying into the need for shutdowns, the seniors also jump on board the need for vaccinations.

When in December 2020, the village’s management announced a vaccination clinic – the county’s first – would be create onsite in tandem with MemorialCare’s Saddleback Medical Center, Diane Phelps sprang into action rallying her fellow members of the Pickleball Club to volunteer.

The pickleball players were perfect, Phelps said, they had the stamina to deal with the demands of the hundreds waiting to be vaccinated.

Phelps and other volunteers also manned the phones calling residents – the oldest first – to get them scheduled for a shot. When the residents were too fragile to attend the clinic, medical staff were sent to them, sometimes administering shots at the curb or in homes.

Wheelchairs and walkers were found and donated en masse – the community now has a surplus.

“There was a huge desire to get vaccinated,” Solomon said. “People were so thankful.”

“It was calm and there was a structure,” Solomon said. “But there was also an excitement.”

At the time, with the lockdown still in place, the vaccination clinic was also a precious opportunity to get out of the house, said Jeannine Ponce, 91, who has lived in the village for 19 years.

“While we waited in line we got to socialize just a little bit,” she said.

As of February, 98% of the village was fully vaccinated, something Andrew Noymer, an epidemiologist and demographer at UC Irvine, said likely explains the good results the community has had in fighting back against COVID-19.

“When this started I was certainly concerned, they have a large concentration of older people,” Noymer said. “I give Laguna Woods Village high marks, we know the biggest risk is the age factor. Laguna Woods is doing better than the county.”

Vaccinated and boosted, Ponce, normally active in yoga, ballroom dance and group aerobics, has been anxious for things to get back to normal as the village opens more things up again. While outside activities have come back to life, she’s anxious to see the things she likes to do return.

Virtual just isn’t the same or as social, she said.

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But “normal” won’t mean the lessons learned during the pandemic will be forgotten, people said.

“If a next wave comes through with a variant, we’re more informed and can make better decisions,” said Pacella, who helped create a virtual travel show for the village’s TV station that was very popular. “If there is another quarantine, we can get through it.”

In addition to generally having more supplies on hand for pending disasters, Solomon said awareness of better communication is key takeaway of the last two years of experience.

“How you communicate with the public, how they’re informed and the opportunity for them to ask questions is important,” he said.

“Channels of communication with public health,” he said is a key element he saw work in Laguna Woods and duplicated elsewhere. “City governments like Irvine, Anaheim and Santa Ana where we set up clinics, now we have those in place.”

“We’re definitely more ready now and we have the playbook to turn to and know where to go,” he said. “We’ve been very conscientious to make sure it’s all recorded.”