NYT More than 1.1 million Americans have died of Covid. An official end to the health emergency has landed in complicated ways for those affected most acutely.
Shannon Cummings, 53, has tried to push forward after her husband, Larry, a college professor, died of Covid-19 in March 2020.
She flew from her home in Michigan to Southern California to attend a Harry Styles concert with family members and friends. Twice a week, she meets with her group therapy classes. She started going out to lunch in public again, a step that took her years.
“We lost over a million people in the pandemic,” she said. “It doesn’t honor any of them to not live my life.”
Yet she is still grappling with the milestone the nation will mark on Thursday: something of an official end of the pandemic, as the Biden administration will allow the three-year-old coronavirus public health emergency — and a separate declaration of a national emergency — to expire. “I feel like some people never really embraced that there was an emergency going on,” Ms. Cummings said. “It’s really hurtful to those of us who have actually experienced a loss from this.” The end of the coronavirus public health emergency in the United States comes at a point when vaccines are effective and widely available, testing is easily accessible and treatments have vastly improved since the beginning of the pandemic.
More than 1.1 million Americans have died of Covid, and the rate of death has markedly slowed in recent months. In 2020 and 2021, it was the third most common cause of death; by this point in 2023, preliminary data show, it has dropped to seventh.
But the move by the Biden administration that takes effect on Thursday has landed with mixed emotions for many Americans who have lost family members and friends to the pandemic.