Lawmakers consider COVID-19 memorial day

By Christian M. W ade Statehouse Reporter

BOSTON — More than 22,000 Massachusett residents have died from COVID-19 since the pandemic began nearly three years ago, more than double the number who were killed during World War II, and the Vietnam and Korean wars combined.

But unlike those who perished during wartime, there are no public memorials or days of remembrance to honor those who were killed by the coronavirus.

On Beacon Hill, state lawmakers are hoping to change that with proposals to set a ‘remembrance day’ for those who’ve died of the virus, or are still struggling with lingering health impacts.

One proposal, backed by nearly 30 lawmakers, would designate the first Monday of every March as “COVID–19 Remembrance Day.” The date is meant to mark the advent of the pandemic in Massachusetts in early-March 2020.

The bill, whose co-sponsors include Sen. Barry Finegold, D-Andover, and Rep. Tram Nguyen, D-Andover, would mark the day to honor the “lives lost to the pandemic, those suffering from the disabling effects of long-COVID, and frontline essential workers who continue to provide support to victims of the pandemic.”

Another proposal would designate March 10 — the day in 2020 when then-Gov. Charlie Baker declared a state of emergency in response to virus — to “honor all who died or were stricken and their families from COVID-19 and subsequent variants” and “appreciate those first responders, caregivers, and researchers who cared for victims or developed treatments or vaccines in response to the virus.”

If approved, neither proposal would create a public holiday, but would require the governor to issue a proclamation every year designating the remembrance day, and to recommend that it be observed in an “appropriate manner.” Jennifer Ritz Sullivan, who lost her mother Earla Dawn to COVID-19, is among advocates leading the charge for a COVID-19 remembrance day.

She said people whose loved ones died haven’t really had an opportunity to stop and mourn in the wake of the pandemic, with society eager to get back to normalcy.

“People who’ve lost loved ones to this disease have not been forwarded space to grieve,” Ritz Sullivan said. “My mom spent the final two weeks of her life isolated in an ICU room. My last text message to her went unread. When she died, I was only given 15 minutes with her body in a funeral home.”

On average, seven people die every day in Massachusetts from COVID-19, according to data from the state Department of Public Health. There have been 22,132 confirmed deaths in the state and nearly 2 million infections, the data shows.

Nationally, COVID-19 has killed nearly 1.1 million people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s data tracker. More than 250,000 children have lost a parent or caregiver to the pandemic.

It’s a loss that seems so unfathomable that many people try to forget what happened and move on, Ritz Sullivan said.

“People block it out and memory hole it,” she said. “But we can’t continue to memory hole something that killed hundreds of thousands of people and continues to kill thousands each week.”

Ritz Sullivan volunteers for the nonprofit Marked by Covid, which has been lobbying Congress to approve a national COVID-19 Memorial Day. The group is supports legislation that would designate the first Monday of every March as a memorial day, but not proposals tied to specific government proclamations.

“The loved ones we’ve lost to COVID-19 and those severely harmed by the pandemic — people living with Long Covid and those grieving losses — deserve recognition by the federal government,” the group said in a statement on its website. “Memorialization and recognition are essential to the process of healing and recovery.”

In Congress, lawmakers filed similar resolutions in the previous session but the measure failed to gain traction. Supporters say they plan to refile the proposal in the new session, which just got underway.