Honoring the Loss: A Call for a National COVID Memorial

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The speaker emphasizes the lack of recognition and honor for the countless lives lost to COVID. They discuss Kristen's evolving perspective on the need for a national COVID memorial, expressing the belief that without such a space to honor the individuals who passed away, the country will struggle to heal and learn. The speaker highlights the absence of a collective acknowledgment of the devastating loss caused by the pandemic and the urgent need to create a permanent memorial for future generations to remember the catastrophe.

When a highway gets made, there’s a clear and consistent process for doing so. Not so, public memorials. From the Vietnam Wall to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, it’s always different. Sometimes a handful of concerned citizens get together and make it happen. Sometimes a nonprofit pushes for it, or a foundation. There’s usually a lot of activism, and a lot of fraught conversations – about design, location, the story it should tell about what happened, and who it affected.

And how does one memorialize such a vast and distributed tragedy like COVID-19, which was devastating physically but also divisive politically?

Don't Forget to Remember