America Goes Viral, And Goes To Mourn

The death toll from COVID-19 has now reached 500,000, an incomprehensible loss of life in any context. And 99.99% of those deaths were preventable, and failed to be prevented by the Trump regime. But it's the Biden administration's problem to fix, and fixing it they are...but thousands are dying daily in the meantime.

A nation numbed by misery and loss is confronting a number that still has the power to shock: 500,000.

Roughly one year since the first known death by the coronavirus in the United States, an unfathomable toll is nearing — the loss of half a million people.

No other country has counted so many deaths in the pandemic. More Americans have perished from Covid-19 than on the battlefields of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War combined.

The milestone comes at a hopeful moment: New virus cases are down sharply, deaths are slowing and vaccines are steadily being administered.

But there is concern about emerging variants of the virus, and it may be months before the pandemic is contained.

Each death has left untold numbers of mourners, a ripple effect of loss that has swept over towns and cities. Each death has left an empty space in communities across America: a bar stool where a regular used to sit, one side of a bed unslept in, a home kitchen without its cook.

The living find themselves amid vacant places once occupied by their spouses, parents, neighbors and friends — the nearly 500,000 coronavirus dead.

In Chicago, the Rev. Ezra Jones stands at his pulpit on Sundays, letting his eyes wander to the back row. That spot belonged to Moses Jones, his uncle, who liked to drive to church in his green Chevy Malibu, arrive early and chat everybody up before settling in to his seat by the door. He died of the coronavirus in April.

“I can still see him there,” said Mr. Jones, the pastor. “It never goes away.”

There is a street corner in Plano, Texas, that was occupied by Bob Manus, a veteran crossing guard who shepherded children to school for 16 years, until he fell ill in December.

In the Twin Cities of Minnesota, LiHong Burdick, 72, another victim of the coronavirus, is missing from the groups she cherished: one for playing bridge, another for mahjong and another for polishing her English.

At her empty townhouse, the holiday decorations are still up. There are cards lined on the mantel.

“You walk in and it smells like her,” said her son, Keith Bartram. “Seeing the chair she would sit in, the random things around the house, it’s definitely very surreal. I went over there yesterday and had a little bit of a breakdown. It’s hard to be in there, when it looks like she should be there, but she’s not.”

 

One in 670 Americans have died from the virus. If you don't personally know somebody who has, I guarantee you that you know multiple people who have lost a friend, co-worker, someone in their religious congregation or a loved one to the virus. It is up to us to remember them, to remember why they died, and to deal with those responsible.

We have to keep living for them.