‘Try to honor the loss:’ Why CNN broadcast a national memorial service for 500,000 lives lost on Covid-19

‘Try to honor the loss:’ Why CNN broadcast a national memorial service for 500,000 lives lost on Covid-19

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More than 500,000 Americans killed in Covid. More than 500,000 lives interrupted by a pandemic that the rest of us will never forget. Journalists are looking for words, illustrations and images to match the magnitude of the moment.
As NPR’s Pien Huang wrote on Monday, “Losing half a million lives with this disease was unimaginable when the first people died of COVID-19 in the United States last February.”

Huang quoted Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, former president of the American Public Health Association, who said that “the sheer number and loss of these people in our society has not been recognized. We cannot think that these people are disposable and expendable And that we can do very well without them. These are the types of blinders that undermine the strength of the whole society. “

President Biden and his government did their best to acknowledge the loss with a tribute and a moment of silence by candlelight at the White House at dusk on Monday. Broadcast networks broadcast live along with major cable news networks. Several of the broadcasts showed the victims’ faces and personalized the unfathomable loss.

“Please don’t look away or be insensitive to the pandemic,” Lisa Respers France of CNN, a daily contributor to this newsletter, tweeted on Monday. Lisa’s father died last week. She wrote: “My father and uncle are included in this number and it is a pain that I don’t wish on anyone. Death always hurts, but it is unbearable when you know it didn’t have to be.”

You are not alone.

Brianna Keilar of CNN “broke in the air” while “sharing tragic clips of those who lost relatives to Covid-19 – asking viewers to remember the lives lost, even if they are ‘exhausted’ and ‘tired’ of the pandemic”, Read Idliby from Mediaite wrote.
“I know it’s difficult. I hear that from many of you,” said Keilar. “I know you are tired. I know you are exhausted. It has been over a year since the first reported case of coronavirus. struggle to pay the bills, the concern that, if this is the day, you may have a fever or start coughing, juggling your work while teaching your children at home, being afraid to see your grandparents, being afraid to see your grandchildren, knowing that there is a vaccine that you and your loved ones cannot get yet, fighting mental health. And for almost 500,000 Americans last year, losing their lives. This is a collective loss. . You are not alone. And if you are lucky enough to still have some fuel in your tank today, it is a good day to remind someone in your life that you are there for them. “

Faith, reflection, healing

CNN broadcast “We Remember 500,000: A National Memorial Service for Covid-19” on Monday. I asked presenter Jake Tapper how the one hour special program came about. “Last spring, given the government’s refusal to acknowledge the important loss that our country was suffering, a good friend of mine suggested that CNN fill this gap,” Tapper responded. “That was for 100,000 Covid deaths in the United States.” (The special aired on Sunday, May 31)

“Tragically, we are in another horrible and moving milestone, 500,000. So it made even more sense to take a moment to try to honor the loss and perhaps find a community and perhaps even greater meaning in faith and reflection,” said Tapper. “I am grateful as always for working on a news network and for a boss who allows such moments.”

We will never know the total death toll

In the Covid response team briefing on Monday, a reporter mentioned the fact that “some health officials and experts said that we are almost certainly underestimating COVID-19 deaths in this country.” CDC director Rochelle Walensky said: “I think that when history writes this, we will understand that the mortality related to this pandemic is much higher than the numbers we have been counting for several reasons.”

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