NYC Honors 30,000 New Yorkers who Died From COVID in the Past Year

By Yehudit Garmaise

      Today, the city is looking back, but also looking forward to happier days ahead.

   One year ago today, an 82-year-old woman in Manhattan was the first to die of COVID-19 in New York City. To honor the 30,000 New Yorkers who have passed away in the last year from the coronavirus, today the city will be hosting a COVID Day of Remembrance.

   In addition, to honor the city’s “unimaginable loss,” Mayor Bill de Blasio will be hosting a ceremony at 7:45pm at the Lincoln Center, when hundreds of candles will be lit and “images of New Yorkers whom we lost from all over the five boroughs, so we remember them, so we appreciate them,” the mayor said last week.

     “There's a great lesson from history that we have to always hold close, which is you have to remember where you came from, you have to remember the people got you there, and you have to remember those we lost, because we would not be anything without them,” the mayor explained. “During the past year, every corner of the five boroughs has known the pain of losing a part of what makes us, truly, the greatest city in the world.

    “So, all the families out there who lost a loved one to COVID, this whole city stands with you. We have to remember them as individuals: what they meant to us, the love they gave us, the support, how they nurtured all of us, what they did for the city.”

   After promising that the country on Thursday that he will compel state, local, and tribal governments to make all American adults eligible to sign up for COVID-19 vaccines no later than May 1,” President Joe Biden also told reporters on a conference call that Americans should be allowed to gather in relative normalcy by July 4.

 (Don Pollard/Office of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo