March 11 marks the fourth anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration that the COVID-19 outbreak was a pandemic. COVID-19 hasn’t gone away, but there have been plenty of actions that suggest otherwise.
In May 2023, WHO announced COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency (SN: 5/5/23). The United States shortly followed suit, which meant testing and treatments were no longer free (SN: 5/4/23). And on March 1 of this year, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened their isolation guidelines for people with COVID-19. Now the CDC says infected people can be around others as soon as a day after a fever subsides and symptoms are improving, even though someone is contagious during an infection for six to eight days, on average (SN: 7/25/22).
These outward signs of leaving the pandemic chapter behind neglect to acknowledge how many people cannot (SN: 10/27/21). Nearly 1.2 million people have died in the United States from COVID-19. Close to 9 million adults have long COVID. Nearly 300,000 children have lost one or both parents.
There has been little official recognition in the United States of the profound grief people have experienced and continue to experience. There is no federal monument to honor the dead — mourners have constructed their own memorials. A resolution to commemorate the first Monday of March as “COVID-19 Victims Memorial Day” awaits action by the U.S. Congress.
Many people are coping not just with the deaths of family and friends from COVID-19, but with how the pandemic robbed them of the chance to say goodbye to loved ones and grieve with their family and community. Researchers are studying the extent to which these losses rippled out into society and how the pandemic interrupted the grieving process.
Emily Smith-Greenaway, a demographer at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, was part of team that estimated that for every one COVID-19 death, there are nine…
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