In 1 year, half a million lives

Just a year ago, America had no idea.

Life in February 2020 still looked normal. Concern was growing about a mysterious respiratory illness that had just been called COVID-19. There was a panic purchase and a feeling of apprehension. However, it was tempered by a great deal of American optimism. Coronavirus still looked like a foreign problem, even with US officials recording the first known death in the country from the virus.

Precisely a year later, America passed the terrible 500,000 deaths from COVID-19.

A relentless march of death and tragedy has distorted time and memory. It became easy to forget the shocking images, so many days after day, of scenes previously unthinkable in a country of so much wealth and power. As the year progressed, the Associated Press photographers formed a pictorial record of suffering, emotion and resilience. It shows the year that changed America.

Looking back, we can see that this happened in phases.

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At first, the crisis seemed distant.

Last February, Americans were still shaking hands and going to work on the crowded public transport. The children were still at school in real classrooms. Hollywood icon Tom Hanks walked the red carpet at the Oscars, not knowing a month after he and his wife would hire COVID-19. Spring baseball training drew the usual crowds, with no face mask in sight.

But a sinister cruise ship with passengers infected with COVID circled the California coast. Within weeks, the Great Princess – and the initial efforts by the state and federal governments to prevent her from disembarking – became a symbol of America’s mistaken belief that it could keep the disease away.

Words like disconnection and social distance were not yet part of our national vocabulary in those early days. Few of us wore masks while making long lines to stock up on groceries and clean the toilet paper shelves.

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The hurt and despair came quickly.

Nightmare scenes that we had witnessed in China and Italy reached America, and the nation gained attention. Nursing homes near Seattle became the sites of the first deadly outbreak in the United States. We saw the elderly and the frail suffer alone: ​​An octogenarian with COVID-19, stretched out on a hospital bed, sending a kiss to the family through a window.

The World Health Organization declared the crisis a pandemic in March, and everything from university campuses to corporate headquarters was emptied. The NCAA announced that the spring ritual for so many Americans – their college basketball tournament – would be played in front of virtually empty arenas, and then abruptly canceled it.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, has become a household name in daily news conferences. When he estimated in March that 100,000 to 200,000 Americans could die from the virus, the horror was tempered by total disbelief. President Donald Trump pointed to hydroxychloroquine as a “game changer”, but medical experts disagreed.

American unrest stopped when hot spots exploded across the country. Los Angeles’ typically congested highways flowed into frightening stretches of open road. The lights remained on in Times Square, but their legendary energy and crowds disappeared. April looked like Armageddon in New York City; ambulances constantly buzzed through deserted streets, bags of corpses were piled on refrigerated trucks that parked in front of hospitals, where they served as makeshift morgues and symbols of death.

Aerial images captured by the AP showed another unthinkable sight: a mass grave in New York City for unclaimed bodies of COVID-19 victims. Workers in hazardous materials suits were seen lowering wooden coffins, stacked neatly on top of each other, in deep trenches dug in a potter’s field off the coast of the Bronx.

We were amazed at the heroism of health professionals and tried to show our gratitude; New Yorkers applauded and applauded and hit pots every night at 7 pm to honor those doctors and nurses.

We regret the constant trauma they have absorbed on the front lines.

Afraid and exhausted, they fought to save the sick and vowed not to let the victims die alone. Inside the hospital rooms, where countless patients had no family to comfort them, the overworked and emotionally exhausted doctors, nurses and chaplains at the hospital fell to the arduous task of offering solace. Some held back their tears by offering comfort and uninterrupted prayers. “There is so much death now that it accumulates in you, it seems heavy,” said a chaplain in Georgia.

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The reality that America had become the global epicenter of the most deadly pandemic in modern history came into focus.

Life has changed online: everything from work and school to doctor’s appointments, birthday parties, weddings – and funerals.

It was clear that nobody was safe. But some were at much greater risk. Racial disparities about who contracted the virus occurred across America, as data showed that blacks and Latinos were disproportionately affected by the virus and were disproportionately dying from it.

Catching COVID-19 became just one of many concerns as the pandemic closed society, forcing companies to close and soaring unemployment. Paychecks have shrunk or disappeared completely for millions, and harrowing portraits of hunger have sprung up across the country as Americans lined up at food banks., many for the first time in their lives.

Science blended with politics, deepening a national divide and adding to the stress of an oppressed nation. Protests against racial injustice took people, mostly wearing masks, to the streets.

Amid the adversities of life, we seek normalcy. Restaurants in some places hung their “open” signs and refused to accept requests to stay at home, welcoming customers willing to dine indoors. Others have come up with creative outdoor options. In the parking lot of a California restaurant, a couple brought their own table and even fine china to eat Italian food.

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Then there were some flashes of hope.

Amid increasing losses, vaccines arrived in mid-December, initiating the biggest vaccination effort in US history. It seemed like the first good news in a doomed year. When doctors and nurses gave the first doses, some applauded. Others wept, constant trauma and sadness merging with hope in an indescribable cathartic moment.

As the supply of vaccines increased – slowly – many of the country’s amusement parks and stadiums, after empty months, reopened as vaccination mega-cities.

Holidays, often a time of hope, brought more suffering. Empty chairs at family tables they were a painful reminder of lost loved ones. Millions of Americans ignored official calls to avoid travel and meetings, making holidays a catalyst for new infections. An outbreak of new cases followed Thanksgiving Day and then Christmas and New Year’s Eve, with each day apparently setting new infection records.

As the country and the world said goodbye, and safe travel, by 2020 it became clear that 2021, at least the first few months, would be quite similar.

The policy changed with President Joe Biden replacing Trump. After four years of chaos and controversy, the new president has brought a shocking sense of calm to national politics. Still, vaccine delays persist and it is not clear whether the United States is winning its war against the virus.

The number of deaths in COVID-19 does not stop at 500,000, and the virus has mutated countless times, with some variants easier to spread and more difficult to protect.

We ask ourselves: what will our new normal look like? Will we ever invade amusement parks again, fill movie theaters, hold big business conferences, or fill Times Square to launch the ball to mark the end of another year?

The deadliest year in American history has taught us that only time will tell.