A Year We Must Never Forget

"It starts by naming the dead—every single day—not allowing people to look away or go numb," says @FacesOfCOVID's Alex Goldstein

The President who promised to “Make America Great Again” is leaving office following a year of unprecedented death and devastation that has left more than 300,000 dead from COVID-19, millions of Americans grieving lost family members, friends, neighbors and colleagues. This holiday season, hundreds of thousands more are worrying about those currently being cared for in the country’s overwhelmed hospitals.

Because of Trump’s failed response to the virus, America leads the world in Covid deaths—and is looking at the deadliest year in its history, with more than 3.2 million total deaths this year, at least 400,000 more than in 2019.

Since March, Alex Goldstein’s @FacesOfCOVID Twitter account has been putting a human face on those we’ve lost, with pictures and stories based on news reports and submissions by family members who want their loved ones remembered.

I interviewed Alex Goldstein about the project, what it represents to him personally, and what it says about our nation’s response to the pandemic.

What motivated you to start “Faces of Covid”?

I started FacesOfCOVID in March of 2020 as the pandemic began its first surge as a means of uplifting the basic dignity of the people we were losing by telling the stories behind the statistics and putting a name and face to our losses. I also felt from the earliest days that many of these deaths were preventable if our government had made better decisions, and if we as members of community had been more committed to each other’s wellbeing, so I also see this effort as fundamentally about accountability.

Who was the first person featured on Faces of Covid?

I believe the first story I shared was of John Knox—he was a former fire marshall for the New York Fire Department, Marine Corps Veteran, and a 9/11 first responder. He lived a life of service only to be taken down by this horrible virus. I found his story on March 16th in one of my first searches.

As the saying goes, “one death is a tragedy but a million deaths are a statistic.” At the end of March, Trump suddenly went from “it’s going to zero” to “200,000 deaths would be a good job.” He based that on a forecast that showed a potential US death toll of 2.2 million. How successful do you think he has been in numbing America in general—and  his base in particular—to the staggering death toll we are now seeing?

He has been the primary driver of the national effort by his administration to rewrite the history of this pandemic in real time with lies and distortions. He was able to sow a remarkable amount of distrust of basic science and public health practices in such a short period that it’s hard to even begin to imagine the full assessment of the damage he has caused.

You told Chris Hayes on MSNBC in September that one of the questions behind each story is, “did this person actually  have to die?” How much do you blame Trump for a death toll that now exceeds 300,000? What do you hear from family members about who they blame?

I think the only thing that was inevitable was that the virus was coming —what we did to respond to it was entirely within our control. That response was led by President Trump and he has failed catastrophically. As a country, we haven't even begun to come to terms with the loss of  320,000+ of our family and friends and neighbors. He gave up, and I put the collapse of the American response to COVID at his feet, and the feet of his many enablers in Congress and throughout his administration.

You rely on local newspapers and journalists for most of the stories you feature. Local papers have been hard hit by the pandemic, too. Are you talking to local journalists? Are they even capable of telling all the stories that they would like to see told?

My experience is that local journalists have had to deal with the competing forces of having the primary burden of telling the stories of people in their community who are dying, and also facing relentless pressure economically to keep their jobs. Many times I would post stories shared by a journalist and within a couple of days that reporter would be furloughed or even have lost their job. The collapse of local news could not have come at a worse time, as I believe these reporters continue to feel a genuine and admirable commitment to tell these stories.

In the midst of the pandemic, Biden and Pence came face to face at Ground Zero at the 19th anniversary event commemorating 9/11. The Covid death toll now equates to more than one hundred 9/11s. What do you think the nation should do to properly grieve and commemorate those lost to Covid-19?

I think it starts by naming the dead—every single day—not allowing  people to look away or go numb but rather face our losses. I’m hopeful that national commemorations like that can provide a platform to expedite that storytelling, but we have a very long way to go. It is why I am so committed to sharing these stories even after things hopefully go from a boil to a simmer in the spring and summer.

To continue remembering the human face of the COVID-19 pandemic, please follow @FacesOfCOVID on Twitter.

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