March 14 will be COVID-19 Commemoration Day in New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday.
The city reported its first coronavirus death on March 14, 2020, and the event will recognize all the people who died from the bug since then.
The city’s Health Department reports that 25,099 deaths from the big apple are related to COVID-19.
Of this total, 20,295 deaths were confirmed by the virus, while 4,804 other deaths were considered “probable” cases of COVID-19.
De Blasio said residents of “all walks of life” were affected, but noted that the disease had particularly affected the city’s poorest minority neighborhoods.
“So many people we have lost have been victims of disparities … victims of too much racism,” the mayor said at his end-of-year press conference.
