Earlier this week, the U.S. crossed a milestone no one wanted to hit: 1 million deaths from COVID-19. Words fail to capture the scope of that loss, the grief and anger and devastation behind that toll.
My colleagues and I wanted to counter the numbness that often sets in after two years of living through and reading about the pandemic. We asked three people who lost loved ones to COVID-19 to share, in their own words, how the virus has changed them, their families, and their outlooks on the pandemic. The results are powerful.
Marya Sherron talked about losing her brother, James, a New York City nurse who was among the first U.S. health care workers to succumb to the virus in March 2020—before she and her family even knew to be afraid for him. “He continues to give me gifts from the way that he lived his life,” she said. “I’m grateful that I got to be his sister.”
Heather Perryman-Tanks recalled the unfathomable grief of losing her mother, Brenda, and grandmother, Pearlie, to COVID-19 just a week apart, during the spring of 2020. “My mother and grandmother were best friends, and I always knew that when my grandmother died, I would have to comfort my mother,” she said. “As it turned out, I didn’t have to comfort either one of them.”
Elana Brown described the complicated mix of emotions brought on by her parents, Clint and Carla, dying from the virus in August 2021, after choosing not to get vaccinated against COVID-19. “I don’t want to speak ill of the dead—especially not my parents—but I feel like they should have thought about what it would do to the people around them,” she said.
The full stories are difficult to read, but well worth your attention—especially as life increasingly returns to “normal,” despite the fact that hundreds of people in the U.S. are still dying from COVID-19 every day.
More than 523.4 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 12 a.m. E.T. today, and more than 6.2 million people have died. On May 18, there were 702,686 new cases and 2,325 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending, in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 10 million cases:
The U.S. had more than 82.9 million coronavirus cases as of 12 a.m. E.T. today. More than 1 million people have died. On May 18, there were 208,383 new cases reported and 943 new deaths confirmed in the U.S.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of May 19, 12 a.m. E.T. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
As cases rise across the country, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is recommending that Americans resume certain pandemic precautions. Right now, roughly a third of the U.S. population lives in counties (mostly in the Northeast and Midwest) where the CDC suggests people consider masking indoors due to case and hospitalization rates—and CDC officials warned that people in other parts of the country may soon be in that group, too. The agency also currently recommends that people consider testing shortly before domestic travel, though that is not a requirement.
The CDC’s vaccine committee is meeting today to decide whether to recommend booster shots to kids ages 5 to 11, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday authorized an additional dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s pediatric shot. If the CDC decides to recommend a booster, shots will soon be available to kids who finished their primary vaccine series at least five months ago.
Federal health officials are considering a double vaccination campaign this fall, potentially encouraging Americans to get COVID-19 boosters along with their flu shots, the New York Timesreports. Nothing is final yet, but FDA advisers will meet next month to discuss booster strategy, tackling questions like who would be eligible for COVID-19 boosters this fall and whether manufacturers should make shots that target newer variants, according to the Times.
Some people with Long COVID have noticed that their symptoms improved after COVID-19 vaccination. A new study, published yesterday in the BMJ, seems to support that observation. The researchers followed a group of about 28,000 U.K. adults who got vaccinated after being infected by the virus that causes COVID-19. About 6,700 of them reported Long COVID symptoms at some point during the study—but the likelihood of having lingering symptoms dropped after getting vaccinated, with sustained improvement for at least two months after the second dose. The study can’t prove cause and effect, but it’s a promising sign that vaccination may help reduce the burden of Long COVID.
Alcohol-related deaths havegone way up in the U.S. during the pandemic, my colleague Jeffrey Kluger reports. Compared to 2019, the number of drinking-related deaths among U.S. adults was 25% higher in 2020 and 22% higher in 2021. The pandemic’s toll on mental health likely played a part, as did the closure of substance use treatment centers and declines in doctors' office visits during the pandemic.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
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Today's newsletter was written by Jamie Ducharme and edited by Angela Haupt.
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