CHICAGO (NewsNation Now) — As the US passes 500,000 deaths from COVID-19, an online initiative has been cataloging the faces and names of those who died from the virus.

The account @facesOfCOVID documents those lost to coronavirus based on news reports, obits, and submissions to the online account. NewsNation spoke with its founder, Alex Goldstein, about the mission of this project.

“You know like a lot of folks in the earliest days of the pandemic, I was really trying to figure out what to do with these overwhelming headlines, these statistics that were frankly numbing that sort of lacked a human face. And sort of set out in the early days to put a face and a name to those numbers. And a story behind them.”

Alex Goldstein, Founder of Faces of Covid project

Some of those highlighted by the page include Mark Blum, a 65-year-old New Yorker remembered as a beloved actor and uncle, and Rania Hago, a 42-year-old Virginian recounted as a “bright light in all our lives”.

Goldstein, started the project in March after the first deaths were reported from coronavirus. He has since shared over 5,000 stories.

“My long-term goal for this is just to continue to start to chip away at these 500,000 nameless and faceless statistics and I want them to be more than that, said Goldstein. “And it starts by being willing to say their name.”