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Half a
million
dead in
US,
confirming
virus’s
tragic
reach
By
ADAM
GELLER
apnews.com
For
weeks
after
Cindy
Pollock
began
planting
tiny
flags
across
her yard
— one
for each
of the
more
than
1,800
Idahoans
killed
by
COVID-19
— the
toll was
mostly a
number.
Until
two
women
she had
never
met rang
her
doorbell
in
tears,
seeking
a place
to mourn
the
husband
and
father
they had
just
lost.
Then
Pollock
knew her
tribute,
however
heartfelt,
would
never
begin to
convey
the
grief of
a
pandemic
that has
now
claimed
500,000
lives in
the U.S.
and
counting.
“I
just
wanted
to hug
them,”
she
said.
“Because
that was
all I
could
do.”
After a
year
that has
darkened
doorways
across
the
U.S.,
the
pandemic
surpassed
a
milestone
Monday
that
once
seemed
unimaginable,
a stark
confirmation
of the
virus’s
reach
into all
corners
of the
country
and
communities
of every
size and
makeup.
“It’s
very
hard for
me to
imagine
an
American
who
doesn’t
know
someone
who has
died or
have a
family
member
who has
died,”
said Ali
Mokdad,
a
professor
of
health
metrics
at the
University
of
Washington
in
Seattle.
“We
haven’t
really
fully
understood
how bad
it is,
how
devastating
it is,
for all
of us.”
Experts
warn
that
about
90,000
more
deaths
are
likely
in the
next few
months,
despite
a
massive
campaign
to
vaccinate
people.
Meanwhile,
the
nation’s
trauma
continues
to
accrue
in a way
unparalleled
in
recent
American
life,
said
Donna
Schuurman
of the
Dougy
Center
for
Grieving
Children
&
Families
in
Portland,
Oregon.
At
other
moments
of epic
loss,
like the
9/11
terrorist
attacks,
Americans
have
pulled
together
to
confront
crisis
and
console
survivors.
But this
time,
the
nation
is
deeply
divided.
Staggering
numbers
of
families
are
dealing
with
death,
serious
illness
and
financial
hardship.
And many
are left
to cope
in
isolation,
unable
even to
hold
funerals.
“In
a way,
we’re
all
grieving,”
said
Schuurman,
who has
counseled
the
families
of those
killed
in
terrorist
attacks,
natural
disasters
and
school
shootings.
In
recent
weeks,
virus
deaths
have
fallen
from
more
than
4,000
reported
on some
days in
January
to an
average
of fewer
than
1,900
per day.
Still,
at half
a
million,
the toll
recorded
by Johns
Hopkins
University
is
already
greater
than the
population
of Miami
or
Kansas
City,
Missouri.
It is
roughly
equal to
the
number
of
Americans
killed
in World
War II,
the
Korean
War and
the
Vietnam
War
combined.
It is
akin to
a 9/11
every
day for
nearly
six
months.
“The
people
we lost
were
extraordinary,”
President
Joe
Biden
said
Monday,
urging
Americans
to
remember
the
individual
lives
claimed
by the
virus,
rather
than be
numbed
by the
enormity
of the
toll.
“Just
like
that,”
he said,
“so many
of them
took
their
last
breath
alone.”
The
toll,
accounting
for 1 in
5 deaths
reported
worldwide,
has far
exceeded
early
projections,
which
assumed
that
federal
and
state
governments
would
marshal
a
comprehensive
and
sustained
response
and
individual
Americans
would
heed
warnings.
Instead,
a push
to
reopen
the
economy
last
spring
and the
refusal
by many
to
maintain
social
distancing
and wear
face
masks
fueled
the
spread.
The
figures
alone do
not come
close to
capturing
the
heartbreak.
“I
never
once
doubted
that he
was not
going to
make it.
... I so
believed
in him
and my
faith,”
said
Nancy
Espinoza,
whose
husband,
Antonio,
was
hospitalized
with
COVID-19
last
month.
The
couple
from
Riverside
County,
California,
had been
together
since
high
school.
They
pursued
parallel
nursing
careers
and
started
a
family.
Then, on
Jan. 25,
Nancy
was
called
to
Antonio’s
bedside
just
before
his
heart
beat its
last. He
was 36
and left
behind a
3-year-old
son.
“Today
it’s us.
And
tomorrow
it could
be
anybody,”
Nancy
Espinoza
said.
By
late
last
fall, 54
percent
of
Americans
reported
knowing
someone
who had
died of
COVID-19
or had
been
hospitalized
with it,
according
to a Pew
Research
Center
poll.
The
grieving
was even
more
widespread
among
Black
Americans,
Hispanics
and
other
minorities.
Deaths
have
nearly
doubled
since
then,
with the
scourge
spreading
far
beyond
the
Northeast
and
Northwest
metropolitan
areas
slammed
by the
virus
last
spring
and the
Sun Belt
cities
hit hard
last
summer.
In
some
places,
the
seriousness
of the
threat
was slow
to sink
in.
When
a
beloved
professor
at a
community
college
in
Petoskey,
Michigan,
died
last
spring,
residents
mourned,
but many
remained
doubtful
of the
threat’s
severity,
Mayor
John
Murphy
said.
That
changed
over the
summer
after a
local
family
hosted a
party in
a barn.
Of the
50 who
attended,
33
became
infected.
Three
died, he
said.
“I
think at
a
distance
people
felt
‘This
isn’t
going to
get
me,‘”
Murphy
said.
“But
over
time,
the
attitude
has
totally
changed
from
‘Not me.
Not our
area.
I’m not
old
enough,’
to where
it
became
the real
deal.”
For
Anthony
Hernandez,
whose
Emmerson-Bartlett
Memorial
Chapel
in
Redlands,
California,
has been
overwhelmed
handling
burial
of
COVID-19
victims,
the most
difficult
conversations
have
been the
ones
without
answers,
as he
sought
to
comfort
mothers,
fathers
and
children
who lost
loved
ones.
His
chapel,
which
arranges
25 to 30
services
in an
ordinary
month,
handled
80 in
January.
He had
to
explain
to some
families
that
they
would
need to
wait
weeks
for a
burial.
“At
one
point,
we had
every
gurney,
every
dressing
table,
every
embalming
table
had
somebody
on it,”
he said.
In
Boise,
Idaho,
Pollock
started
the
memorial
in her
yard
last
fall to
counter
what she
saw as
widespread
denial
of the
threat.
When
deaths
spiked
in
December,
she was
planting
25 to 30
new
flags at
a time.
But her
frustration
has been
eased
somewhat
by those
who slow
or stop
to pay
respect
or to
mourn.
“I
think
that is
part of
what I
was
wanting,
to get
people
talking,”
she
said,
“Not
just
like,
‘Look at
how many
flags
are in
the yard
today
compared
to last
month,’
but
trying
to help
people
who have
lost
loved
ones
talk to
other
people.”
___
Associated
Press
video
journalist
Eugene
Garcia
contributed
to this
story.
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