By Allison Gilbert, The New York Times, April 12, 2021
The end of the Covid-19 crisis in the United States is in sight, thanks to effective vaccines being deployed on a massive scale. But the still growing death toll will leave behind millions of bereaved people, wracked by the suffering that the loss of a loved one can bring. This is a public health crisis with consequences that may last generations, which we do not currently have the policy tools or resources to address.
We first need to get a sense of the scope of our national grief. Researchers are just beginning to count the bereaved, and while current estimates suggest five million Americans have lost a loved one to Covid-19, the final tally is likely to be much larger.
Ashton Verdery, an associate professor of sociology and demography at Pennsylvania State University, recently led a study that introduced the Covid-19 Bereavement Multiplier. By his team’s calculus, for every person who dies of Covid-19, nine loved ones are left behind.
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