2021 General News

Jasmine Hardy is getting frustrated as her son James, 5, has a hard time concentrating in speech therapy class in Buffalo, NY, Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2020. On the right, Janelle, 2, looks at a book. Jasmine and Robert Hardy have had many challenges with full-tume remote learning with their autistic son James and sophomore Briyana.

The body of a suspected coronavirus victim, wrapped in yellow infectious waste plastic bags and wrappers, lies on the patient's deathbed awaiting a body bag in a hospital in Indonesia, Saturday 18 April 2020. The wrapping of the patient, which takes two nurses a full hour to complete through three layers of plastic and nine times of disinfection, is intended to suppress the spread of coronavirus. As mandated by the Indonesian Ministry of Health, the wrapping of the body is a standard procedure for every suspected, comorbid, and positive confirmed COVID-19 death. This process continues until today. As is the case with most victims, family members were not allowed to say goodbye. After the image was published by National Geographic, the image sparked denial and uproar across social media. Many who saw the image declared it to be a set up intended to spread fear. By the end of the year, 563 medical workers in Indonesia have perished due to the pandemic, with the country’s coronavirus toll reaching over 800,000 cases and 20,000 deaths. (Off the record: due to privacy reasons, I am legally bound not to identify the patient, the identity of the hospital, or indicate the hospital’s local geographic location e.g. city, town, etc. The most detail I can include about the hospital would be the country location.)

Nikita Krivtsov disappeared on his way to work. Ten days later he was found hanged in a tree on the outskirts of Minsk. Earlier in the day he was a part of a demonstration against Lukasjenko but nobody knows what happened next. He is buried in his home village of Maladzetina. His mother cries and his wife Jelena clutches his photo when the coffin is carried out from the funeral parlor.

Cemetery workers carry the coffin of a person who died from the coronavirus at the Nueva Esperanza cemetery in Lima, Peru, on Wednesday, June 17, 2020. Peru is battling one of the worst outbreaks of coronavirus in South America, with more than 241,000 cases and over 7,000 deaths.

A migrant pulls a girl lying on a cart, following a fire at the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece, September 11, 2020.

A young girl shows her style as she fills her tray during lunchtime, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020 at Garden City Elementary School in Indianapolis. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, extra safety precautions during lunch are in place, including individually wrapping the food, social distancing with the help of Xs on the floor for guidance, mask usage and extra hand sanitizer stations.