The U.S. Faces a ‘Grief Crisis’ Resulting from the Pandemic

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 12 May 2021

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A 2020 study found that for every person who dies of COVID-19, at least nine people become bereaved. With more than half a million lives lost to COVID-19 in the U.S., that means more than 5 million people are experiencing grief from the pandemic alone. In her New York Times op-ed, “The Grief Crisis is Coming,” journalist and author Allison Gilbert writes that “we must begin to address the toll” of this grief and its impact on public health. We’ll talk to Gilbert and bereavement researcher Dr. Toni Miles about the rippling effects of grief on this scale and how to address it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:00.0	Coming up on forum, we've heard the grim statistic for some time now that well over half a million people have died of COVID in the U.S. A number you may be less familiar with is the estimate that each death leaves behind about nine survivors.
1:07.0	A grief crisis is building in America, with more than 5 million people now suffering the loss of someone close to them from the pandemic.
1:14.6	The numbers, doctors and researchers say, require a public health response.
1:18.6	We look at addressing the toll of the grief crisis next on forum. This is Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
1:38.6	While this past Mother's Day was a cause for celebration, as some people hugged their moms for the first
1:44.8	time post-vaccine. For others, it triggered a profound sadness as they experienced their
1:50.7	first Mother's Day without their moms. More than 580,000 people have died of COVID in the
1:56.9	U.S., and studies find that for every death, nine grieving people are left behind,
2:02.8	among them an estimated 40,000 children who've lost a parent.
	...

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