COVID-19 one year later: Revisiting a world on the precipice of a global pandemic
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(NewsNation Now) — Thursday marks one year since the World Health Organization declared coronavirus a global pandemic. On March 11, 2020, confirmed cases of COVID-19 worldwide stood at 125,000, and reported deaths stood at less than 5,000.
On that day, Italy closed shops and restaurants, locking down after 10,000 reported infections. The NBA suspended its season, and Tom Hanks, filming a movie in Australia, announced he was infected with the virus.
On that evening, then-President Donald Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office, announcing restrictions on travel from Europe that set off a trans-Atlantic scramble. Airports flooded with unmasked crowds in the days that followed. Soon, they were empty. So many of the photographs feature unmasked faces, and to 2021 eyes it is jarring.
And that, for much of the world, was just the beginning.
Gonzaga’s Martynas Arlauskas, from left, Drew Timme and Filip Petrusev celebrate after defeating Saint Mary’s in an NCAA college basketball game in the final of the West Coast Conference men’s tournament Tuesday, March 10, 2020, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher) 
Workers from a Servpro disaster recovery team wearing protective suits and respirators enter the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., to begin cleaning and disinfecting the facility, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, near Seattle. The nursing home is at the center of the coronavirus outbreak in Washington state. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) 
Few people walk at the Naviglio Grande canal, one of the favorite spots for night life in Milan, Italy, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. Italy entered its second day under a nationwide lockdown after a government decree extended restrictions on movement from the hard-hit north to the rest of the country to prevent the spreading of coronavirus. (AP Photo/Antonio Calanni) 
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, accompanied by his wife Jill arrives to speak to members of the press at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) 
Trader Michael Gallucci works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. Stocks are closing sharply lower on Wall Street, erasing more than 1,400 points from the Dow industrials, as investors wait for a more aggressive response from the U.S. government to economic fallout from the coronavirus. (AP Photo/Richard Drew) 
Defense attorney Donna Rotunno meets the press outside the courthouse after Harvey Weinstein’s sentencing, in New York, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for rape and sexual assault. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) 
House Democrats crowd into an elevator as they rush to the chamber for a vote just after meeting with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is moving swiftly toward House passage of a coronavirus aid package possibly this week, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. In front row are, from left, Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., chair of the House Oversight Committee. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) 
An Indian medical officer offers hand sanitizer to a child during an awareness campaign against the coronavirus at a train station in Bangalore, India, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi) 
Tourists take in the view from the Edge, the new observation deck on the 100th floor of 30 Hudson Yards in New York on Wednesday, March 11, 2020. Edge is touted as the Western Hemisphere’s highest outdoor sky deck. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen) 
Indian revelers, faces smeared with colored powder, dance during celebrations to mark Holi, the Hindu festival of colors in Prayagraj, India, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. This exuberant festival originally held to celebrate the fertility of the land, is also associated with the immortal love of Hindu God Krishna and Radha. (AP Photo/Rajesh Kumar Singh) 
A patient is prepared for surgery at Idlib central hospital in Idlib, Syria, March 12, 2020. Idlib city is the last urban area still under opposition control in Syria, located in a shrinking rebel enclave in the northwestern province of the same name. Syria’s civil war, which entered its 10th year Monday, March 15, 2020, has shrunk in geographical scope — focusing on this corner of the country — but the misery wreaked by the conflict has not diminished. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) 
Palestinian Health workers spray disinfectant as a precaution against the coronavirus in the Al-omari mosque in Gaza City, Thursday, March 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra) 
PSG supporters gather outside the Parc des Princes stadium during a Champions League round of 16 second leg soccer match between Paris-Saint-Germain and Borussia Dortmund in Paris Wednesday, March 11, 2020. The match is played behind closed doors without spectators due to the COVID-19 outbreak. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) 
Opposition protesters clash with police blocking their march in Caracas, Venezuela, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. U.S.-backed Venezuelan political leader Juan Guaido is leading a march aimed at retaking the National Assembly legislative building, which opposition lawmakers have been blocked from entering. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos) 
Waiters wearing masks serve food and drink in a terrace outside Mestalla stadium during the Champions League round of 16 second leg soccer match between Valencia and Atalanta in Valencia, Spain, Tuesday March 10, 2020. The match is being played in an empty stadium because of the coronavirus outbreak. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) 
Ultra-Orthodox Jews dress in ISIS militants costumes during celebrations of the Jewish festival of Purim in Bnei Brak, Israel, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. The Jewish holiday of Purim commemorates the Jews’ salvation from genocide in ancient Persia, as recounted in the Book of Esther. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty) 
A shopper holds an item surrounded by mostly empty shelves in a supermarket in Madrid, Spain, Tuesday, March 10, 2020. People have emptied shelves of food and supplies in supermarkets in Madrid after Spain’s health minister on Monday announced a sharp spike in coronavirus cases in and around the national capital. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) 
Two women take a selfie with the Olympic rings in the background in the Odaiba section of Tokyo, Thursday, March 12, 2020. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike spoke Thursday after the World Health Organization labeled the spreading virus a “pandemic,” a decision almost certain to affect the Tokyo Olympics. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) 
Atletico Madrid’s Kieran Trippier attempts a shot at goal in front of Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold during a second leg, round of 16, Champions League soccer match between Liverpool and Atletico Madrid at a packed Anfield stadium in Liverpool, England, Wednesday, March 11, 2020. (AP Photo/Jon Super) 
A man dressed as a ghost stands on the empty tribune prior the Europa League round of 16 first leg soccer match between Linzer ASK and Manchester United in Linz, Austria, Thursday, March 12, 2020. The match is being played in an empty stadium because of the coronavirus outbreak. (AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson) 
Soldiers wearing protective face masks march past the closed entrance gates to the Forbidden City, usually crowded with tourists before the coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, Thursday, March 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) 
A woman walks in front of a stage and carousel at Pier 39 in San Francisco, Thursday, March 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) 
President Donald Trump addresses the nation from the Oval Office about the coronavirus outbreak at the White House, Wednesday, March 11, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) 
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases speaks in the briefing room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March, 10, 2020, about the coronavirus outbreak as Vice President Mike Pence, second from left gestures to a display. Also onstage from left are U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams, Pence, White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow, Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Seema Verma, and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
As of Wednesday, there have been more than 117 million confirmed coronavirus cases globally and more than 2.6 million people worldwide have died from the virus, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. No one has been untouched by the virus.
Not the Michigan woman who awakened one morning, her wife dead by her side. Not the domestic worker in Mozambique, her livelihood threatened by the virus. Not the North Carolina mother who struggled to keep her business and her family going amid rising hate crimes against Asian Americans. Not the sixth-grader, exiled from the classroom in the blink of an eye.
“I expected to go back after that week,” said Darelyn Maldonado, now 12. “I didn’t think that it would take years.”
Roughly 10 million jobs were lost in the United States because of the pandemic and getting those jobs back is proven to be a struggle. Millions of jobs lost likely won’t come back — especially at employers that require face-to-face contact with consumers: Hotels, restaurants, retailers, entertainment venues.
Vaccines have provided a glimmer of hope in 2021 along with new long-awaited guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Fully vaccinated Americans can now gather with other vaccinated people indoors without wearing a mask or social distancing, the CDC announced Tuesday.
The recommendations also say that vaccinated people can come together in the same way with people considered at low-risk for severe diseases, such as in the case of vaccinated grandparents visiting healthy children and grandchildren.
The guidance is designed to address a growing demand, as more adults have been getting vaccinated and wondering if it gives them greater freedom to visit family members, travel, or do other things like they did before the pandemic.
Even as vaccines increasingly promise a return to something close to normal life, emerging virus variants are a cause for concern.
Public health experts tracking the trajectory of more contagious virus variants have warned that lifting restrictions too soon could lead to another lethal wave of infections.
The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday the best estimate when enough people are immune to end the outbreak range between 70-85% of the population — a figure expected to be attained by late summer or early fall.
About 9.7% of the U.S. population, or 32 million people, have been fully inoculated with COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer Inc/ BioNTech SE, Moderna Inc and Johnson & Johnson, according to CDC data.
CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has warned of a potential for a fourth wave of cases in the U.S., saying, “We have the ability to stop that from happening if Americans continue to follow public health protocols, including masking, washing hands and social distancing.”
