The New York Times publishes breathtaking front page as U.S. coronavirus deaths near 100,000

The Gray Lady memorialized those who lost their lives to coronavirus in Sunday's paper

May 24, 2020

As Americans prepare to celebrate Memorial Day, which kicks off the summer season, death from COVID-19 is expected to soon exceed 100,000 in the U.S.

As such, The New York Times dedicated Sunday’s front page to 1,000 victims, describing the total losses from the deadly contagion as “incalculable.”

“We were trying to capture that personal toll,” Marc Lacey, the newspaper’s national editor, told Reuters. “We were trying to humanize these numbers, which keep growing and have reached such unfathomable heights that they’re really hard to grasp any more. … This is about everyday people. It’s about a death toll, reaching a number that’s really just jaw-dropping.”

The front page of The New York Times for May 24, 2020 pic.twitter.com/d14JhFp4CP

— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 24, 2020

TheGrio previously noted we’re three months into this era’s most devastating crisis and there is no end in plain view. It’s the hard truth.

What does that mean? The reality is that there will be no “going back” to how things were and, due to lack of federal leadership, there won’t be a nationwide system to combat COVID-19’s spread or correlated health and financial fallouts.

The Times selected the 1000 names from newspaper stories across the country about COVID-19 victims.

“We knew that there should be some way to try to reckon with that number,” said Simone Landon, assistant editor of the Times’ Graphics desk.

“The 1,000 people here reflect just 1% of the toll,” says the paper’s description of the list. “None were mere numbers.”

Among the names are Lila Fenwick, 87, the first Black woman to graduate from Harvard Law.

“America is fast approaching a grim milestone in the coronavirus outbreak,” The Times presentation said. “But a count only reveals so much. Memories, gathered from obituaries across the country, help us reckon with what was lost.”

The Times front page is devoid of photographs, news articles, or ads, and filled only with the names of the dead, under the headline: “U.S. DEATHS NEAR 100,000, AN INCALCULABLE LOSS.”