New York City gathered in the evening of Sunday, March 14, on the fateful anniversary of the city’s first coronavirus-related death: an 82-year-old woman admitted to hospital a week earlier in a critical state. The information, relayed in a tweet from Mayor Bill de Blasio was the prelude to a series of macabre announcements.
Today, we are confirming our first death due to severe complications from COVID-19. The patient, an elderly woman with advanced emphysema, was admitted to the hospital last week as one of our first cases, and had been in critical condition ever since.
– Major Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) March 14, 2020
The next day, March 15, 2020, the mayor of the “city that never sleeps” announced the closure of restaurants, bars, and cafes, judging that it was necessary “React as if we were at war”. A month later escaped from the city under “lockdown”, which has become the global epicenter of the pandemic, images of refrigerated trucks at the doors of saturated hospitals and that of a mass grave filled with long and summary light wooden crates. , on Hart Island.
→ ONE YEAR AGO. New York at “war” against the Covid-19
A year later, the city counts more than 30,200 victims, a number “Hardly imaginable”, moved Bill de Blasio. A catastrophic toll, a hundred times higher than that of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The “Dark day” of March 14, declared an official day of commemoration, will now be dedicated to the memory of the victims of Covid-19 in New York City.
Online Memorial
On this occasion, the town hall encouraged its citizens to share online the names and photos of their loved ones who died from the Covid. Portraits shown during the ceremony on the pillars of the Brooklyn Bridge, in the form of a gigantic virtual memorial. An essential work of memory, already started within the framework of various local initiatives.
“All stories are important. We want to remember as many New Yorkers as possible who have died from the epidemic. “, explains Anjali Tsui, co-editor of the project Missing Them. Created in April 2020 on the initiative of the information site The City, the online memorial celebrates the lives of New Yorkers swept away by the Covid-19. The obituaire, which already lists 2,000 victims of the pandemic, is the result of collaborative work between citizens and journalists.
Many memorial actions
Parents, colleagues, brothers or sisters, bear witness to the lives of those who were torn from them by the pandemic. Miguel Almarante Jr., deceased at 32, “Was a role model for all those he came into contact with”. Cynthia L. Adams, deceased at 69 “Lit up the room she came in and was just full of life.” The daughter of Robert Brogan, who died at 93, “Would have liked to be able to hold his hand in his last days and sing for him”.
→ REPORTAGE. In New York: Covid-19 revealing inequalities
Numerous memorial actions have been undertaken in the city since the end of February, a necessary step making it possible to “Take a break and look back”, underlines Anjali Tsui, on the eve of an “after”, which she hopes more lenient.
One year later
The first signs of this “after” are starting to emerge in New York City, where 16% of the 8 million inhabitants are now vaccinated. From the beginning of March, restaurants were able to reopen at a reduced level, as were cinemas.
→ READ. Covid-19: American vaccines see the end of the tunnel
For their part, the US federal health authorities, responsible for establishing health protocols since the start of the pandemic, have erased the wearing of masks and physical distancing from their recommendations for people vaccinated during small meetings.
Nationally, the symbolic 500,000 death mark has been exceeded, making the United States the worst-hit country in the world in absolute terms. “That’s nearly 70,000 more than all Americans who died in WWII”, Joe Biden saddened, on February 19.
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