For weeks after Cindy Pollock began planting tiny flags in her yard – one for each of the more than 1,800 Idahoans killed by COVID-19 – the charge was largely a number. Until two women he had never met knocked on the door in tears, looking for a place to mourn the husband and father they had just lost.
Then Pollock knew that her tribute, however sincere, would never begin to convey the pain of a pandemic that has now claimed 500,000 lives. in the US and counting.
“I just wanted to hug them,” she said. “Because that was all I could do.”
After a year that darkened the doors of the US, the pandemic passed on Monday an important stage that once seemed unimaginable, a clear confirmation of the coverage of the virus in all corners of the country and communities of any size and makeup.
“It’s very hard for me to imagine an American who doesn’t know someone who has died or has a family member who has died,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics at the University of Washington in Seattle. “I didn’t fully understand how bad it is, how devastating it is, for all of us.”
Experts warn that it is possible that there will be around 90,000 deaths in the coming months, despite a massive vaccination campaign. Meanwhile, the nation’s trauma continues to accumulate unparalleled in recent American life, said Donna Schuurman of the Dougy Center for Grieving Children & Families in Portland, Oregon.
In other moments of epic loss, such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Americans came together to confront the crisis and console the survivors. But this time, the nation is deeply divided. An astonishing number of families are facing death, serious illness and financial hardship. And many are left to cope in isolation, unable even to organize funerals.
“In a way, we are all saddened,” said Schuurman, who counseled the families of those killed in terrorist attacks, natural disasters and school shootings.
In recent weeks, the virus deaths fell from more than 4,000 reported in some days in January to an average of less than 1,900 per day.
However, at half a million, the fee recorded by Johns Hopkins University is already higher 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 similar to a September 11 every day for almost six months.
“The people we lost were extraordinary,” said President Joe Biden said Monday, urging Americans to remember the individual lives claimed by the virus, rather than being numb by the enormity of the tax.
“That’s right,” he said, “so many of them took their last breaths alone in America.”
The tally, which accounts for 1 in 5 deaths reported worldwide, far exceeded early projections, which required federal and state governments to organize a comprehensive and sustained response, and individual Americans to heed warnings.
Instead, a push to reopen the economy last spring and the refusal of many to maintain social distance and wear face masks fueled the spread.
The numbers alone do not come close to capturing the pain.
“I never doubted he would succeed. … I believed so much in him and in 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 careers in nursing and started a family. Then, on January 25, Nancy was called to Antonio’s bed just before her last heartbeat. He was 36 years old and left behind a 3-year-old son.
“It simply came to our notice then. And tomorrow it could be anyone “, said Nancy Espinoza.
By the end of last fall, 54% of Americans reported knowing of someone who died of COVID-19 or was hospitalized, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. The pain was even more prevalent among black Americans, Hispanics and other minorities.
Deaths have almost doubled since then, the scourge has spread far beyond the northeastern and northwestern metropolitan areas hit by the virus last spring, and the cities of Sun Belt hit hard last summer.
In some places, the severity of the threat has been slow.
When a beloved teacher at a community college in Petoskey, Michigan, died last spring, residents mourned, but many remained skeptical about the severity of the threat, said Mayor John Murphy. That changed over the summer after a local family hosted a party in a barn. Of the 50 who participated, 33 became infected. Three died, he said.
“I think from a distance, people felt that ‘this won’t catch me,'” Murphy said. “But over time, that attitude has changed completely from ‘Not Me.’ Not our area. I’m not big enough, as far as the real business has become. ”
For Anthony Hernandez, whose Emmerson-Bartlett Memorial Chapel in Redlands, California, was overwhelmed by managing the funeral of COVID-19 victims, the most difficult conversations were the unanswered ones, as he sought to comfort the mothers, fathers and children who -they lost their love. the.
His chapel, which organizes between 25 and 30 services in a typical month, managed 80 in January. He had to explain to some families that he would have to wait weeks for the funeral.
“At one point, I had every bar, every dressing table, every embalming table had someone,” he said.
In Boise, Idaho, Pollock began the memorial in her backyard last fall to counter what she saw as a widespread denial of the threat. When deaths rose in December, she planted 25-30 new flags at a time. But her frustration has been alleviated to some extent by those who slow down or stop to respect or mourn.
“I think that’s part of what I wanted people to talk about,” she said. “Not just like ‘Look at how many flags there are in the yard today compared to last month,’ but trying to help people who have lost loved ones talking to other people. ”
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Associated Press video journalist Eugene Garcia contributed to the story.