'I love this city to my bones': How Mayor Jenny Durkan leads Seattle

Washington was the first state hit with the new coronavirus, meaning its leaders had no U.S. peers to look to for guidance. At the epicenter, near Seattle, Mayor Jenny Durkan has relied on science, teamwork – and speed.

It was Monday, March 2, when Mayor Jenny Durkan took the call at her Seattle home. On the line was Harvard-trained epidemiologist Trevor Bedford, who had caught the mayor’s attention with an ominous tweet two days earlier about his Seattle lab’s tracking of the new coronavirus.

Dr. Bedford had connected the genetic...