For some people, there is no 'sunny side of the street'...

 

Two years ago Sars-Cov-2 penetrated the United States, tentatively at first and then with a terrifying roar. On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization declared Covid a pandemic, and two days later Donald Trump announced a national emergency, adding the memorable disclaimer: “I don’t take responsibility at all.”

Now two years into the global pandemic, hope is in the air that the US might finally be turning the corner. The Omicron surge is abating, mask mandates are being scrapped and vaccination requirements lifted even in Democratic states where public safety stances have been most stringent. Music festivals are being planned this summer with no Covid restrictions. 

But the more the Covid cloud appears to be clearing, the more it becomes apparent that the consequences of the virus are likely to stick around. As Addison said, it’s hard to put behind you a disease that has killed almost 1 million people in America alone.

Ashton Verdery, a sociologist at Pennsylvania state university, created with colleagues a bereavement multiplier that estimates how many people in the US have lost a close relative to Covid. Given the paucity of historical demographic data for Hispanic and Asian Americans, they based their calculations on population statistics for white and Black Americans though they are confident their conclusions apply broadly to all US residents. Verdery was taken aback by the findings. The number affected by Covid bereavement was much larger than he had expected. 

Verdery and the team concluded that for every person who dies of Covid in the US there are almost nine people in their immediate kinship group left bereaved. For every grandparent who dies there are on average four grandchildren mourning them, every parent two children, every sibling two brothers or sisters left behind.

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