A year is a lifetime. This week in 2020, during what was called the novel coronavirus, the pathogen was doing its worst. Hospitals were hooking up patients to what they thought were lifesaving ventilators. Bodies were piling up.
This weekend in 2021, Coney Island is reopening, to broad smiles hidden behind ubiquitous facemasks.
A year is a lifetime. From April 5 to April 11, there were 759 COVID deaths per day in this city; one day that week the toll hit 814.
On April 8, 2021, there were 56 COVID deaths in all of New York State, and a seven-day average of 720 deaths per day nationwide. It is still too much dying, but hard-won lessons on masking and social distancing and vaccinations have worked.
A year is a lifetime. A year ago, as we were the epicenter, as we suffered unimaginably, we feared our density and other features of urban life were fatal weaknesses. Nearly 7,000 Americans had then perished in hard-hit New York and New Jersey combined, which totaled more than half the deaths in America at large.
As of April 10, 2020, COVID deaths in the United States number 560,000. New York State has lost 50,000 lives; New Jersey, nearly 25,000. That’s 13% of the fatalities in a nation that learned the hard way that no community was immune to the ravages of the microscopic contagion.
A year is a lifetime. A year ago, smart people believed that you might easily pick up the bug by touching surfaces. The best doctors thought that ventilators were needed for treatment of COVID cases. Innovations in prevention and treatment have saved thousands of lives.
A year is a lifetime. In April 2020, though scientists saw real promise in early vaccine development, skeptics worried and warned of counting chickens before they hatched. Today, 20% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and one-third of the population has had at least one dose.
Learn the lessons. Mourn the dead. Never again go back.
