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good reminder as we get back to "normal" that for so many people things will never be the same
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Last month, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said vaccinated people could resume gathering indoors unmasked, many saw it as the most hopeful sign so far of the nation’s reopening.
But Pamela Addison felt blindsided. She got on a Zoom call with other women whose husbands had died of covid-19. To many, it felt too soon to stop wearing masks. And the CDC announcement felt like a punch in the stomach.
“I think it makes our grief deeper,” said Addison, 37, a teacher in Waldwick, N.J. Her 44-year-old husband Martin, a speech pathologist at a hospital, died of the coronavirus in April 2020, leaving behind two children, who are now 3 and 1. “As people move forward who haven’t been impacted, I kind of feel like they forget and don’t care about the people whose lives were. You kind of don’t feel cared about.”
After 15 months of surges and shutdowns, vaccines have turned the tide of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Infection rates have plummeted. President Biden has declared that “the light at the end of the tunnel is actually growing brighter and brighter.” Restaurants and bars are reopening to full capacity, and flights are crammed with people excited to finally take postponed vacations or reunite with relatives.
But for millions, there will be no reunions and no return to a pre-pandemic life. Covid has killed nearly 600,000 in the United States and left an estimated 5.4 million grieving. For many of them, watching the country open up feels like the reopening of a wound.
“They are thankful the pandemic is coming to an end, they are thankful there is a vaccine, but . . . I think the quickness with which this happened, and the celebration with which this happened is a little discordant,” said Chris Kocher, founder and executive director of Covid Survivors for Change, a survivors and families advocacy group, adding that because of travel restrictions, some families are only now beginning to gather and mourn.
“The lack of validation is really hard for people — the idea that it’s behind us, the idea that we don’t need to take basic safety precautions,” he said. “We’ve experienced a collective national trauma — how can we celebrate the lives that have been lost?”
For many, the loss is not just psychological but also financial. In some cases, family breadwinners have died..............
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Last month, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said vaccinated people could resume gathering indoors unmasked, many saw it as the most hopeful sign so far of the nation’s reopening.
But Pamela Addison felt blindsided. She got on a Zoom call with other women whose husbands had died of covid-19. To many, it felt too soon to stop wearing masks. And the CDC announcement felt like a punch in the stomach.
“I think it makes our grief deeper,” said Addison, 37, a teacher in Waldwick, N.J. Her 44-year-old husband Martin, a speech pathologist at a hospital, died of the coronavirus in April 2020, leaving behind two children, who are now 3 and 1. “As people move forward who haven’t been impacted, I kind of feel like they forget and don’t care about the people whose lives were. You kind of don’t feel cared about.”
After 15 months of surges and shutdowns, vaccines have turned the tide of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Infection rates have plummeted. President Biden has declared that “the light at the end of the tunnel is actually growing brighter and brighter.” Restaurants and bars are reopening to full capacity, and flights are crammed with people excited to finally take postponed vacations or reunite with relatives.
But for millions, there will be no reunions and no return to a pre-pandemic life. Covid has killed nearly 600,000 in the United States and left an estimated 5.4 million grieving. For many of them, watching the country open up feels like the reopening of a wound.
“They are thankful the pandemic is coming to an end, they are thankful there is a vaccine, but . . . I think the quickness with which this happened, and the celebration with which this happened is a little discordant,” said Chris Kocher, founder and executive director of Covid Survivors for Change, a survivors and families advocacy group, adding that because of travel restrictions, some families are only now beginning to gather and mourn.
“The lack of validation is really hard for people — the idea that it’s behind us, the idea that we don’t need to take basic safety precautions,” he said. “We’ve experienced a collective national trauma — how can we celebrate the lives that have been lost?”
For many, the loss is not just psychological but also financial. In some cases, family breadwinners have died..............
