The study led by a group of Swedish researchers and published Sunday in the Journal of the American Medial Association, found that a test  based on measuring certain proteins in the brain had about a 90% accuracy rate in diagnosing Alzheimer’s in those with cognitive symptoms. By comparison, primary care doctors and specialists had a 61% and 73% accuracy rate in diagnosing the disease, the study found.

Currently, the disease can be definitively diagnosed only by more expensive and invasive tools such as PET scans and spinal taps. The neurodegenerative disease afflicts more than 6 million Americans, and Baltimore and Maryland have been found to have some of the nation’s highest rates of prevalence.

The blood test in the study and others of its ilk are only available in research trials at the moment. Getting one to the market and available in a primary care physician’s office would represent “incredible progress,” said Corinne Pettigrew, an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who was not involved in the study.

“This would allow patients to review options for treatments, learn about what to expect of the disease and plan for the future,” said Pettigrew, who leads outreach, recruitment and engagement for the Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

She said the test also would be important for ruling out Alzheimer’s as the reason for a patient’s cognitive impairment, allowing doctors to seek and treat the actual cause.

The study involved 1,213 people in Sweden whose average age was 74 and who were being evaluated because of cognitive symptoms. According to the paper, Alzheimer’s is often misdiagnosed by primary care physicians and even specialists because of a lack of or limited access to diagnostic tools. That prevents patients from starting treatments for those with early Alzheimer’s, which require test results confirming the disease, the study said.

“The higher diagnostic accuracy of the blood test indicates that it could be suitable for implementation in primary care, but future studies need to examine its effect on clinical care,” according to the study, which was led by Dr. Sebastian Palmqvist, of Lund University in Sweden. “In addition to improving diagnostic accuracy, a positive test result could further support the initiation of widely available treatments.”

Ilene Rosenthal, program director at the Greater Maryland chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, called the study findings “extremely exciting” for advocates such as her organization who have pushed for more research to understand and treat the devastating disease.

“When you have 90% accuracy,” she said, “that’s very impressive.”

Rosenthal envisions a time when a blood test for Alzheimer’s will be as common and widely available as those that test for cholesterol.

“This should become a normal part of a physical or a wellness visit,” she said.

Alzheimer’s still has no cure, but there are treatments that can ease its symptoms and change its progression if started early enough. That makes the development of a test vital, and it will incentivize patients and doctors to use them, Rosenthal said.

“The real urgency right now is the availability of new treatments. But these treatments are only going to work in the early stages,” she said. “It’s so much better to know than to not know.”

Three months after it crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge and sent the span tumbling into the Patapsco River, the 984-foot Dali container ship began slowly sailing under its own power — assisted by four tugboats — just before 8:30 a.m. Monday to Norfolk, Virginia. After a 23-hour trip without any issues, the ship tied up at roughly 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, according to Darrell Wilson, spokesperson for Synergy Marine Group, the Dali’s operator. In Norfolk, the vessel will unload all of its containers and receive more extensive repairs.

With crushed containers still resting on the bow and a tarp covering a hole in the hull, the ship left the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal and then turned right to follow the federal shipping channel Monday morning. Marine tracking data indicated the ship traveled at roughly 9 knots (10 mph) for the bulk of its transit Monday.

Traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge near Annapolis was halted for roughly 20 minutes at 11 a.m., as the ship approached the bridge. To avoid distracting drivers, the Maryland Transportation Authority sometimes stops traffic on the bridge when vessels of high public interest sail underneath.

About 100 people gathered at Sandy Point State Park, in the shadow of the Bay Bridge, to spectate as the damaged Dali — still carrying fragments of Key Bridge — safely sailed beneath the span that links Central Maryland to the Eastern Shore. The crowd, some of whom peered through binoculars, fell so silent as the ship approached that birds could be heard chirping. As the Dali safely transited the bridge, observers called out: “Threading the needle” and “Through the goal posts.”

“Did you notice how quiet everyone was?” said Paula Schnabel, of St. Margaret’s. “It was almost solemn.”

The Dali had been in Baltimore since it lost power in the early hours of March 26, colliding with a Key Bridge pier and collapsing the structure, killing six construction workers. Debris from the disaster blocked Baltimore’s shipping channel for more than two months, and the bridge’s demise eliminated one of only three harbor crossings, slowing car and truck traffic in the area.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI are both investigating the calamity. As the Dali sailed Monday, the NTSB released a rare update to its investigation, noting that it is focusing on a small electrical component of a circuit that connects two wires, known as a “terminal block.” The NTSB took the component to a lab for further testing, it said in a statement, also noting it had completed interviews with the 21 crew members aboard the ship at the time of the incident.

Prompted by the collapse, the Coast Guard has also initiated a board of inquiry to evaluate potential risks to other bridges in the U.S.

Last month, crews used explosives to cut up a piece of the Key Bridge that sat atop the Dali, then refloated the vessel. Five tugboats moved the ship to the Seagirt Marine Terminal, where some of the wreckage on its crumpled bow was removed. Some of that debris remained on the vessel as it transited Monday, however, and several workers could be seen standing on the bow as the vessel began its voyage. The ship will undergo further cleanup and repairs in Norfolk.

Containers remained on the Dali in Baltimore to weigh the ship down so it fit under the Bay Bridge, which has about 185 feet of vertical clearance.

The Coast Guard enforced a 500-yard safety zone around the Dali during its voyage, and there is also a 100-yard safety zone while the ship is moored near Norfolk to protect from “potential hazards created by the heavily damaged M/V Dali while it offloads cargo,” according to a Coast Guard memo.

The Dali leaves Baltimore for first time since Key Bridge collapse | PHOTOS

A few people gathered at Fort Armistead Park earlier in the day to watch the ship’s departure from the Port of Baltimore, including George M. Treas III, who lives nearby. He likened the bridge collapse to “losing somebody” and said visiting the area is “like going to a graveyard.”

As Treas watched the ship slowly depart, he said: “It feels good. I feel safer now. They caused enough havoc here.”

Bob and Karen Merrey had to tend to some business on the other side of the Bay Bridge from their home on Kent Island, and they left early Monday to avoid the span’s closure.

They had been scheduled to take Royal Caribbean’s Vision of the Seas cruise out of Baltimore on April 4, but with the port closed at the time, they themselves had to travel to Norfolk to board. Retirees from the Towson area with a son who lives near the Key Bridge, the couple had driven across that span the day before the catastrophe.

They quietly watched Monday from Sandy Point State Park as the Dali passed before them and beneath the Bay Bridge.

“I still,” Bob said, “get goosebumps.”

Baltimore Sun reporter Alex Mann contributed to this article.

Watch live: Dali ship departs from Baltimore

Their work was both essential and easy to overlook: a construction crew on a midnight shift making road repairs on the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

But for a cargo ship striking the bridge March 26 and plunging the massive span and the crew into the Patapsco River, they likely would have remained hidden in plain sight, part of an immigrant workforce in a country eager for their labor but not for fixing a system that keeps many from becoming citizens.

Six workers died: Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera. Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes. Carlos Hernandez. Miguel Luna. José Mynor López. Maynor Suazo Sandoval.

The families they left behind in Mexico and Central America and those they built in the Baltimore area are now reuniting in mourning after years of living apart and in a kind of limbo: The men worked here, but also supported family there; they created new lives here, but their immigration status remained murky and subject to political vagaries.

It’s unclear where the men fell on the spectrum of immigration status, not uncommon given the fractured immigration system in which rules vary with individual circumstances and the process of achieving citizenship is complicated and restrictive, even for those who have worked here legally for years or even decades.

For construction workers — almost 40% of whom are immigrants in the Baltimore-Washington area, according to one university research center — the disconnect can be particularly jarring.

“I mean, they are building America, quite literally,” said Tom Perez, a senior White House advisor and former Maryland and U.S. labor secretary.

“They’re building bridges, they’re building roads, they’re building buildings,” he said in an interview with The Baltimore Sun. “And they don’t have that bridge to citizenship yet, even though they can work and they’ve been here for 30 years and their kids are U.S. citizens.”

Still, even during these devastating days, friends and family of the bridge victims and other immigrants say the U.S. remains the same beacon that it’s been for centuries for wave upon wave of immigrants fleeing the likes of war, violence and poverty.

“Making the decision wasn’t easy; it was hard, hard, the hardest,” said Carlos Alexis Suazo Sandoval, whose brother, Maynor,  died in the bridge collapse, speaking in Spanish. “But the search for a dream of a better life brought us to the United States.

“The only country that gives us a solution is the United States,” he added. “It’s a country that is pretty and wonderful for us.”

In a well-worn tradition, Carlos followed Maynor here from their hometown of Azacualpa in western Honduras, leaving what he said was government corruption that left a dearth of opportunity.

He stayed with a nephew and his brother, who helped him find work, until he could get his own apartment in the same Owings Mills complex. Their sister, Norma, immigrated several years ago, as well, and lives about five minutes away.

On Friday, 10 days after the disaster, Maynor’s body was recovered from the wreckage of the bridge. But three other families anxiously awaited the recovery of their loved ones’ bodies. Divers had recovered earlier the bodies of Hernandez Fuentes, the crew foreman and a native of Mexico who lived in Essex, and Castillo Cabrera, a Dundalk resident originally from Guatemala.

A day after the bridge collapse, Perez, who has become a point man for Democratic President Joe Biden on Key Bridge recovery efforts, spent what he called a “very gut-wrenching two hours” with the men’s families at a response command center.

“How can we help?” said Perez, relaying an exchange with one particularly inconsolable woman.

“‘El cuerpo, el cuerpo, el cuerpo,’” he said she told him, “which is Spanish for [the] ‘body.’”

A port city

A port city, Baltimore has long drawn immigrants to its shores, with Locust Point in South Baltimore among the busiest points of entry in the 19th century after Ellis Island in New York. Among them, Perez notes, was an ancestor of Biden, who visited the scene Friday.

As earlier immigrants watch the news unfold about the workers lost in the bridge collapse, they say they see a mirror of their own journeys but with a difference wrought by time.

“We came for a goal. It’s painful to see that our people in the United States died in the attempt to achieve the dream that they were following,” said Maria Alvarado, who owns Diner Latino in Highlandtown and Middle River, speaking in Spanish.

Alvarado was the last of her seven siblings to leave El Salvador, arriving in 1998, driven away by crime that made it dangerous to walk on the streets after dark and so few work opportunities that she took three buses for a distant job.

Once here, she benefited from those who preceded her, particularly in the 1980s when many Salvadorans fled a civil war in which tens of thousands were killed or disappeared. They had stable jobs, and a fairly smooth path to citizenship at a time when, under Republican President Ronald Reagan, a sweeping immigration reform measure made millions who had entered prior to 1982 eligible for amnesty.

That was then, though, a time before immigration policy became a political hot button, subject to loud debates but little practical action to fix the citizenship process, which one immigration expert says is restrictive and complicated.

“It’s not like going to the MVA to get your license,” said Elizabeth Keyes, a University of Baltimore law professor. “You have to fit into a category that the United States Congress has said is a priority for immigration, and those categories are pretty limited, and the ones that are more open have long waiting lines or really complicated processes.”

Additionally, “there’s no visa available just because people have spent a certain amount of time here, and it’s not even automatic if you have U.S. citizen children.”

Therefore she and others say, even immigrants who have proper work permits are left in a state of fear, wary of drawing attention to themselves or asking for help even when they are entitled to it lest it jeopardize a future or ongoing application for a more permanent status.

As a result, said Gustavo Torres, executive director of the immigrant rights group CASA, the potential for exploitation is ever present.

“Some employers feel that because you are undocumented, you are not going to complain, you are not going to defend your rights,” he said.

Maybe they don’t get paid, or they get injured, Torres said, but they don’t report it or seek help for fear of being fired.

“They decide not to go to the hospital,” he said. “It’s that simple: They are very scared.”

Bringing home the bodies

For those mourning the loss of loved ones in the bridge collapse, the fractious political debate over immigration is likely distant noise.

Instead, they are working on such details as how to get family members in home countries to Maryland for funerals, or how to arrange for transport for burial overseas.

Perez said he has put family members in touch with staff “at the highest levels” of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who will help them seek humanitarian parole that would allow a relative to travel here for a funeral.

“We have people literally on standby to help,” he said.

The family of Castillo Cabrera, who is from San Luis in the department of Petén in Guatemala, said they want to bring him home for burial, Perez said. The repatriation process is one with which he is “very familiar,” he said, as his own parents, immigrants from the Dominican Republic, similarly wanted to be buried in their birth country.

According to the Guatemalan consulate, the family of another victim, López, similarly have asked for his body to be returned to his home country. He is from Camotán in the Chiquimula department.

After Suazo Sandoval’s body was recovered Friday, his brother said his family plans to bury him in Honduras, where his mother lives.

Other families have decided to bury the men in the place where they spent their final years.

The family of Hernandez Fuentes, the foreman of the Brawner Builders crew, said they want him buried in the U.S., where he had children and had built a life after more than 15 years here, said Carlos Escalante Igual, the general director of migrant assistance for the Mexican state of Veracruz.

Hernandez Fuentes was from Xalapa, the capital of Veracruz, whose government is trying to help his sister obtain a visa to travel to the U.S. to say goodbye, Escalante Igual said.

The crew foreman is related to another man who perished in the bridge collapse, Carlos Hernandez, and brother-in-law of another worker, Adrian Julio Cervantes, who was rescued and survived. Hernandez and Cervantes came from the Mexican state of Mihoacán.

Sheela Murthy, an immigration attorney based in Baltimore County, said permission to travel to the U.S. for a funeral is difficult, particularly for those from poorer countries. Officials fear the travelers will take the opportunity to just stay, she said.

But the amount of attention from elected officials and the public could make it easier for relatives of the those who died in the bridge collapse, she said.

“There is a process. There is a system,” Murthy said. “But they’ll probably walk it through, and make it much faster.”

‘An environment of anguish’

At a certain point, life in El Salvador became untenable, a friend of Miguel Luna told The Sun.

“We lived in an environment of anguish,” said Alvaro Lizama, speaking in Spanish. “We left for work, and we didn’t know whether we’d be able to come back home.”

Gangs had taken over, demanding payment to leave or enter the cities and threatening physical violence, he said.

“The gangs — more than anyone — they hurt the hardworking people,” he said.

Lizama and Luna played together on the Once Berlinés pro soccer club in the city of Berlín, in the department of Usultán in eastern El Salvador.

Shortly after Lizama retired from the team, in 2005, he decided to take the same path as his friend and leave for the U.S. He lives in California, while Luna moved to Maryland to build a new life. A skilled welder, Luna also ran a Salvadoran food truck with his wife and helped care for children and grandchildren.

These days, Lizama said, his home country is in better shape, and the two sons he left behind as boys are now young adults who decided to stay there and complete their studies.

Lizama hasn’t seen them in person since he left for the U.S., instead making do with video and phone calls, and taking comfort in the funds he sends back to his family.

He works as a delivery driver.

“Nobody wants to say it, but we are the workforce that this country needs. For any job, because there we are,” Lizama said. “We never say no.”

The Baltimore Sun on Friday named Frank T. Cimino Jr. as one of 10 alleged abusers whose names were redacted in a public version of the report issued April 5.

Cimino, 75, founded the boychoir 36 years ago and served as its president and director emeritus. Now numbering about 130 members, it performs widely in the state, nationally and abroad.

“This painful set of circumstances was completely unexpected, and to our knowledge, there have never been any previous complaints about Mr. Cimino’s conduct,” the choir’s board of directors wrote in an email Saturday to its community. “The entire Board understands how surprising and concerning this must be as the allegations made against Mr. Cimino occurred long before the Maryland State Boychoir was established. The Board shares your sentiments.”

The choir’s board appointed its artistic director, Stephen Holmes, to take over for Cimino as acting president, the email said.

The Sun reported Cimino was fired in 1987 from his job as minister of music at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Northeast Baltimore after a man reported that he had been sexually abused by him as a choirboy in the 1970s. Archdiocese officials confronted Cimino with the allegations, and he denied them, according to the attorney general’s report. The report said the man reported the sexual abuse again in 2020.

Cimino started the boychoir the same year he was fired from St. Thomas More.

The news of his inclusion in the report prompted the choir’s board to convene “to discuss the matter and organizational leadership,” and Cimino resigned effective immediately, according to the email.

“The Maryland State Boychoir will continue to monitor and evaluate this situation and pledges to update you as appropriate,” the email said. “Lastly, there is nothing more important than the emotional and physical safety of our choristers, and everyone in our community. We remain committed to our future and advancing our very important mission.”

Cimino began the choir with just 14 boys who would practice in his mother’s basement. It grew from there, recording several CDs and performing everywhere from the White House to the Vatican.

The late Gov. William Donald Schaefer named the group an official goodwill ambassador of the state, and it performed at his funeral.

The choir eventually was housed in St. Matthew United Church of Christ in the Northeast Baltimore neighborhood of Mayfield, where Cimino serves as organist and music minister. The choir bought the church building in 2006.

On Sunday, Cimino led singers of a range of ages in choir rehearsal prior to the morning’s church service. When asked for comment, he said he didn’t have time.

The Sun briefly spoke with several congregation members who said they did not know about the allegations against Cimino. Those who were aware said they knew little and did not want to discuss it.

Rev. Jill Snodgrass officiated the service but made no mention of Cimino. She encouraged attendees to come forward and share their prayer requests, and one man said that when controversy “swirls around” that “we need to remember we are a family.”

Pastor Eugene P. Bartell, who has since retired, spoke late in the service and asked the congregation to pray for Cimino, whom he called “one of the brightest and strongest” in the congregation. He said Cimino has nurtured the choir and its choristers and wished that the church would pour down love and peace on him.

“Frank’s spirit has been tested in these last couple days,” Bartell said. “We love him. … Thank God for the precious life of Frank Cimino.”

With the revelation of Cimino as No. 147 on the attorney general’s “List of Abusers” in its report, only one remains unidentified, a nun who served for two years in the 1940s.

The Sun reviewed thousands of pages of court records, decades of archdiocese directories, and dozens of contemporary newspaper articles to piece together details that helped reveal the men’s identities during the past month.

On Thursday, The Sun identified the Rev. Thomas Hudson, an Episcopal minister, as No. 150 in the report. He had been a public schoolteacher in Frederick in the mid-70s and was active at St. John Catholic Church there. The report said he gave a 15-year-old boy alcohol on a camping trip and tried to take the youth’s pants off.

Hudson has taken a leave of absence from his church, St. George in Allegany County.

The Sun has also revealed the names of five high-ranking Catholic archdiocese officials, referred in the report as Officials A through E, who, according to the attorney general’s findings, helped cover up the abuse.

Among them is Msgr. Richard “Rick” Woy, Official B, currently pastor of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Crofton. The day after The Sun article named him, he resigned from the board of directors of the University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center. A previous effort to oust him from the Towson hospital’s board after he was featured in the 2017 Netflix documentary, “The Keepers,” had failed.

Another of the officials The Sun named, Msgr. J. Bruce Jarboe, Official A in the report, was slated to become pastor of a prominent parish, the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Towson. But Archbishop William Lori canceled the transfer the week after The Sun identified Jarboe. He remains pastor of St. Ann in Hagerstown.

“It was to make a point that, in fact, it was intentional,” Love, of Cockeysville, Maryland, said. “It wasn’t an accident.”

Huguely had been so drunk, he maintained, that he remembered little of that night in 2010, when he kicked in the door of his on-again, off-again girlfriend, who like him was 22 years old and a lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, and she ended up dead. A medical examiner said she died of blunt force trauma to the head, and Huguely was convicted of second-degree murder.

On Monday, one day before the 12th anniversary of the killing, the Charlottesville Circuit Court jury considering Sharon Love’s wrongful-death civil suit found Huguely liable and awarded the family $15 million in damages. The jury’s finding of willful and wanton misconduct, in disregard of Yeardley Love’s rights, has both personal and legal implications.

Sharon Love’s attorney, Paul D. Bekman, said the finding means Huguely, who is about midway through a 23-year prison sentence he received for the murder, cannot have the damages dismissed by a bankruptcy court.

It is unclear when or how much Sharon Love and her elder daughter Lexie Love Hodges, who were each awarded $7.5 million, will be paid. But Bekman vowed to chase down whatever assets Huguely, who grew up in Chevy Chase and attended the private Landon School in Bethesda, has or attains in the future.

“All we know is once we have a judgment we are entitled to inquire about all his assets. We will find them,” he said. “His assets are at risk for the rest of his life.”

Bekman said the case is about more than the money.

“There was a wrong here that needed to be righted,” he said. “The justice system worked to punish him, but it did nothing to help Sharon and Lexie recover what the law says they’re entitled to recover.”

Which is, he said, their mental anguish, sorrow and loss of Yeardley.

“He’ll be out and free to do whatever he wants to do,” Love said of when Huguely completes his sentence. “And Yeardley will never be out.

“Who know what happens when he gets out,” she said. “I don’t know what’s around the next corner for him, but he will be indebted to us. Whether we see (any damages) or not, it will still be a reminder of what he did.”

Huguely is expected to be in his 40s when released — there is no parole in Virginia but inmates can shave some time off their sentence for good behavior. His attorney, Matthew Green, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. During the civil trial, Green acknowledged that Huguely’s actions caused Yeardley Love’s death and her family was entitled to compensatory damages, but that because his client had been drinking heavily, he did not intend to kill her.

Sharon Love said she hasn’t thought ahead to what they might do with any money.

“I would want to do something that would honor Yeardley,” Love said. Perhaps it could fund a scholarship in her daughter’s name, she said, or go to the One Love Foundation that she and Hodges started.

The foundation, named after Yeardley’s uniform number, works to educate young people about relationship violence. More than 1.8 million people have attended workshops conducted by the foundation

On May 15, the foundation is having its first in-person “Move for Love” 5K run/walk to raise $350,000. The event will be held at the Camden Yards Sports Complex between the Ravens and Orioles stadium.

Love said she and Hodges found it painful to return to the Charlottesville courthouse where they attended the criminal trial in 2012 and then the recent civil trial.

“Everything comes flooding back,” she said. “You can put yourself in Yeardley’s shoes that day, and then it’s hard to get yourself back out.”

Love said she felt anger, watching her daughter get visibly upset when Huguely, who testified in the civil case, directly addressed them. He said he misses Yeardley, thinks about her every day and takes responsibility for her death.

Love said she considers the civil case “the end of everything. There is no reason for us to face each other again.”

So much had changed in the time between the criminal and civil cases: Hodges is now married and has three daughters, aged 5, 3 and 1, whom Love often and happily babysits and takes turns at the wheel of the carpool.

That gives her less time for the foundation, but she still does occasional speaking engagements and other events honoring her daughter, who graduated from Notre Dame Prep in Towson.

“I just feel like she’s with me when I do it,” Love said.

Tu ser querido puede irse por la mañana para no volver nunca —y tú puedes seguir con nuevos empleos, hogares y compañeros—, y aun así esa persona seguirá en tu vida, aunque en ausencia en lugar de presencia.

Puedes desplegarte en una guerra que contaba con un apoyo generalizado, hasta que dejó de tenerlo, y ahora ver desde casa cómo termina con amargura, derroche de sangre y el enemigo, una vez derrotado, retomando el país.

Y se puede pasar de vivir en un Estados Unidos que, ante el terrorismo global, se quitaba los zapatos de buena gana para subir a los aviones, pero que ahora, en medio de una amenaza aún más letal, no se pone de acuerdo para llevar tapabocas o vacunarse.

El 20? aniversario de los atentados terroristas del 11 de septiembre de 2001 llega a un país enormemente alterado en aspectos que van desde lo personal hasta lo general, y que sigue lidiando con las secuelas de aquel día demoledor incluso mientras lucha contra nuevos desafíos.

“Después del 11 de septiembre, los estadounidenses se unieron en torno a la bandera”, dijo William Braniff, investigador de la Universidad de Maryland, College Park, sobre el terrorismo. “Obviamente, ahora no estamos ahí en nuestra política interna”.

Casi tres mil personas murieron esa mañana cuando secuestradores tomaron cuatro aviones. Los atacantes estrellaron los aviones contra las torres gemelas del World Trade Center en Nueva York, el Pentágono en las afueras de Washington y, tras la rebelión de los pasajeros y la tripulación, contra un campo en Pensilvania. Los atentados desencadenaron una guerra, librada primero en Afganistán, país albergaba al grupo Al Qaeda que estaba detrás del terrorismo, y luego en Irak.

La conmoción del 11 de septiembre permanece viva.

Una nueva normalidad

“Fue algo aterrador”, dijo Laura Nelson, entonces empleada de la Agencia de Seguridad Nacional (NSA) en Fort Meade. “Cambió a todos y a todo de alguna manera”.

Estaba en la mitad de una carrera de 37 años que Nelson, ingeniera eléctrica de formación, solo puede decir que implicaba la recopilación de datos. Tras escuchar que un avión se estrelló contra el World Trade Center, Nelson corrió al único lugar donde sabía que había un televisor: la sala de descanso. Nelson dijo que los trabajadores de la NSA no tenían mucho acceso a los medios de comunicación externos, en parte para proteger sus redes internas.

Como no se sabía qué más podía ser un objetivo, se ordenó al personal que evacuara. Al día siguiente, ya se había establecido una nueva normalidad: habitualmente estaba en su despacho a las 7 a.m., pero se encontró con seguridad adicional y una larga fila para entrar.

Al año siguiente, Nelson se trasladó a un puesto de la NSA en la CIA, algo que probablemente no habría hecho de otro modo, dado el trayecto de 50 millas desde su casa de Severna Park. Esto cambió su trayectoria profesional. Dejó la agencia como alta ejecutiva en 2018.

Ahora es presidenta y directora ejecutiva de la National Cryptologic Foundation, que apoya al museo de la NSA y promueve su historia y su misión a través de programas educativos, y sigue estando orgullosa del trabajo que ella y sus colegas hicieron después de los atentados, cuando “todos los motores estaban encendidos y todos nos movíamos en la misma dirección”.

“Teníamos una misión realmente difícil”, dijo Nelson, “y lo hicimos lo mejor que pudimos en esas condiciones”.

‘En un día hermoso’

A menudo, cuando la gente piensa en el 11 de septiembre, recuerda la belleza del tiempo en la Costa Este ese día: el aire fresco de principios de otoño, el cielo brillantemente azul. El hecho de que este telón de fondo se viera tan violentamente perforado por las bolas de fuego anaranjadas y el humo oscuro que salía de los lugares del accidente, aumentaba la incredulidad de todo ello.

“Realmente supimos, literalmente, que en un día hermoso, el más hermoso, a la gente buena le pueden pasar cosas malas”, dijo John Milton Wesley, de 72 años, cuya prometida era pasajera en el avión que se estrelló contra el Pentágono. “Era una de las mejores personas que he conocido en mi vida”.

Sarah M. Clark, de 65 años, madre de dos hijos mayores, era profesora en una secundaria de Washington. Acompañaba a un estudiante seleccionado para asistir a una expedición de la National Geographic Society en Santa Bárbara, California. Justo antes del viaje, ella y Wesley buscaron un lugar para su boda, prevista para el 22 de diciembre de 2001.

Durante los cinco años siguientes, Wesley no pudo soportar cambiar nada en la casa de Columbia que compartía con Clark, con quien cantaba en el coro de una iglesia. Wesley volvió a componer e interpretar “for my healing”, como dijo al público en un reciente concierto en An Die Musik en Baltimore. Tocando dos teclados y acompañado por un percusionista, cantó melodías alegres y baladas románticas y melancólicas.

Ahora es el portavoz de la Baltimore’s Office of Equity and Civil Rights, Wesley se mudó a una nueva casa y tiene una nueva compañera. Pero conserva una foto de Clark y su alumno pasando por el control de seguridad del aeropuerto internacional de Dulles el 11 de septiembre.

Wesley asistirá, como casi todos los años, a la conmemoración anual en el Pentágono, donde se recuerda a cada una de las 184 víctimas.

‘El tiempo que ha pasado’

Christine K. Fisher, del Condado Montgomery, ha participado todos los años. Le reconforta el reconocimiento de su marido y el vínculo que siente con otros que perdieron a sus seres queridos en el Pentágono. Tras el acto de este año, organizará una reunión con familiares, amigos y colegas de Gerald P. Fisher.

Su marido, de 57 años, era consultor de Booz Allen Hamilton. Junto con dos compañeros de trabajo, se reunió en el Pentágono con el teniente general Timothy J. Maude, jefe adjunto del Estado Mayor del Ejército, y el militar de más alto rango que murió en el ataque.

Christine Fisher se dio cuenta recientemente de que lleva ya unos dos meses más sin su marido que con él. Los dos hijos  de él un matrimonio anterior, a quienes ella ayudó a criar, han tenido cinco hijos entre los dos.

“Eso da la medida del tiempo que ha pasado”, dijo Fisher, “y de lo que se ha perdido”.

Esa mañana lo llamó desde su oficina en la empresa de diseño de interiores de la que eran propietarios para decirle que las rosas que le había enviado por su cumpleaños el 10 de septiembre habían llegado por fin, y que eran preciosas. Le saltó el buzón de voz y, al difundirse la noticia de los atentados, no pudo contactarse con él.

Aun así, mantuvo la esperanza de que, en un edificio tan grande, lo más probable era que él sobreviviera. Esa noche, el jefe de su marido llegó a su casa con la noticia, un momento que ella recuerda como surrealista y totalmente clarificador.

“En una fracción de segundo, mi vida cambió y nunca volvió a ser la misma”, dijo Fisher.

Recuerda lo sola que se sintió después de que su padre, que había pasado cinco semanas con ella, volviera a casa. Desde entonces, él murió, al igual que su pareja de 12 años, y ella tiene una nueva relación.

La experiencia del 11 de septiembre la unió más profundamente a sus hijastros.

“Tengo suerte de tenerlos”, dijo Fisher, que no quiso dar su edad. “Desarrollamos una relación muy estrecha debido a lo que pasó, y siempre estoy ahí para ellos”.

Fisher ha participado activamente en algunos de los grupos de familiares que han abogado por los memoriales, por la reparación, por las respuestas. Mientras que la gran mayoría de las familias aceptaron los pagos de un Fondo de Compensación de Víctimas creado por el Congreso, Fisher estuvo entre las que rechazaron lo que consideró una oferta “decepcionante” que, según ella, infravaloraba la vida de su marido.

Se unió a una demanda que pretendía responsabilizar a las aerolíneas y a otras empresas de que los secuestradores subieran a los vuelos. Los demandantes llegaron a un acuerdo por una suma no revelada que su abogado, Keith S. Franz, con sede en Towson, describió como “múltiplo” de lo que el fondo habría pagado. Más que el dinero, dijo Franz, las familias ganaron la rendición de cuentas y la seguridad de las aerolíneas ha mejorado enormemente.

Algunas familias y supervivientes del 11 de septiembre están demandando también a Arabia Saudita y presionando al presidente demócrata Joe Biden para que haga públicos documentos clasificados que, según ellos, podrían proporcionar información sobre los vínculos entre ese país y los secuestradores.

A Afganistán y de vuelta, otra vez

Incluso sin estos esfuerzos por ofrecer una imagen más completa de lo que ocurrió hace 20 años, las secuelas del 11 de septiembre son tan ineludibles como la actual cobertura informativa sobre el regreso de Afganistán al control de los talibanes.

Para veteranos como Scott Goldman y Nick Culbertson, los acontecimientos han desencadenado múltiples llamadas telefónicas entre aquellos con los que prestaron servicio.

“Es como ponerse al día con alguien en un funeral”, dijo Goldman, de 39 años.

Formó parte del Cuerpo de Abogados del Ejército (JAG), que trabajó con las fuerzas del orden y los fiscales para detener y encarcelar a los insurgentes. Ver cómo los talibanes liberan a los prisioneros como parte de su toma de poder, dijo Goldman, “ha sido bastante duro”.

Aun así, dijo, “no siento que el esfuerzo haya sido en vano. Incluso con la fuerza bruta no se puede deshacer todo”.

Ver la caída de Afganistán hace que su trabajo actual sea aún más significativo, dijeron.

Goldman es el director ejecutivo y Culbertson miembro de la junta directiva de The 6th Branch, una organización sin ánimo de lucro de Baltimore dirigida por veteranos de la guerra de Afganistán e Irak que utiliza las habilidades aprendidas en las fuerzas militares. Con grupos comunitarios como la New Broadway East Community Association y voluntarios, emprenden proyectos en East Baltimore, desde la limpieza de la basura en los terrenos baldíos hasta la creación de parques infantiles y espacios verdes.

“No puedo arreglar Afganistán”, dijo Goldman, “pero todos podemos dedicarnos a trabajar en casa”.

Culbertson, que cursaba el décimo grado el 11 de septiembre, se alistó en 2004 para pagarse la universidad tras la muerte de su padre. Pudo ir a la Johns Hopkins University y luego fundó una empresa de software, Protenus.

Culbertson, de 37 años, prestó servicio en los Boinas Verdes del Ejército, ayudando a entrenar a comandos afganos. Ha tenido “sentimientos de todo tipo” al pensar en su servicio y en cómo acaba de terminar la guerra.

“Hay orgullo por el éxito que tuvimos, pero también hay arrepentimiento y vergüenza y decepción por lo que pasó”, dijo. “Es una situación con muchos matices: ¿Qué hay que aprender de ella? ¿Debimos haber estado allí desde el principio? ¿Qué hemos hecho en estos 20 años?”

Amenazas a la patria

Desde el 11 de septiembre, otros se han hecho también esas preguntas. Algunos investigadores dicen que la misión en Afganistán perdió el rumbo, sobre todo después de que Estados Unidos invadiera Irak, y los estadounidenses dejaron de prestar atención.

“Estábamos librando una guerra limitada en Afganistán, y los talibanes estaban librando una guerra total”, dijo Braniff, el profesor de la Universidad de Maryland, que también dirige el Consorcio Nacional para el Estudio del Terrorismo y las Respuestas al Terrorismo, o START. “No nos sacrificábamos en casa. No teníamos lunes sin carne. La población civil no ha tenido que sintonizarse”.

START fue fundado por otro profesor de Maryland, Gary LaFree, y mantiene una base de datos mundial sobre terrorismo. Contiene más de 200 mil sucesos que se remontan a 1970, una línea del tiempo del terror infligido por diversos grupos e individuos.

En algún momento (los investigadores pueden tardar varios años después de un atentado en reunir los datos para una entrada), LaFree espera “casi con toda seguridad” que el equipo de investigación añada la insurrección del 6 de enero en el Capitolio de Estados Unidos por parte de los partidarios del ex presidente Donald Trump que intentaron detener la certificación de la elección de Biden.

LaFree anticipa que habrá represalias, pero dijo que cree que encaja en los criterios, que incluyen el uso de la violencia por parte de actores no estatales por razones políticas o de otro tipo. El hecho de que algunos, incluso titulares de cargos públicos, traten de dar un giro positivo al 6 de enero muestra hasta qué punto Estados Unidos ha caído en un partidismo tóxico, dijo LaFree.

“Una minoría bastante decente de representantes [de Estados Unidos] piensa que fue un acontecimiento patriótico”, dijo. “Me preocupa mucho para el futuro de la democracia que no podamos ponernos de acuerdo sobre los hechos”.

Según él y otros, es especialmente consternador que las divisiones políticas infecten ahora la respuesta a la pandemia del coronavirus.

“El mundo es un lugar terriblemente peligroso en estos días”, dijo Michael Greenberger, un profesor de derecho que fundó el Centro de Salud y Seguridad Nacional de la University of Maryland, Baltimore, después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre y es su director.

El centro ayuda a los organismos gubernamentales a planificar las emergencias. Inicialmente iba a centrarse en la seguridad nacional, pero añadió la “salud” a su misión para incluir a la facultad de medicina, dijo Greenberger. Esto ha resultado ser muy oportuno, ya que han surgido amenazas como el ébola, el ántrax y el COVID-19.

Cambiar y recordar

Pese a la multiplicidad de amenazas, dijo que Estados Unidos está mejor preparado que hace 20 años, ya que ha aprendido a coordinarse mejor entre organismos, a nivel local y federal. Ya se trate de terrorismo internacional o nacional, de ciberataques o de emergencias meteorológicas provocadas por el cambio climático, “en los últimos 20 años se ha hecho un gran esfuerzo para planificar cómo responder eficazmente”, dijo Greenberger.

“Eso no existía el 11 de septiembre”, dijo.

A medida que se acerca la “importante marca” del 20? aniversario, Fisher dijo que le entristece que un país que en su día se vio “animado” por los atentados se haya dividido.

Desea volver al Pentágono para este aniversario, después de que el evento de 2020 se celebrara de forma virtual debido a la pandemia. Espera que las conmemoraciones continúen en los próximos años.

“Una de las frases que siempre se escucha es: ‘Nunca olvidaremos'”, dijo. “Y no lo haremos”.

Some have feared, justifiably, that such toxins might escape accidentally or be spirited away intentionally. Now, those scenarios provide a convenient backdrop for an ongoing conspiracy theory: that the coronavirus originated at a laboratory at the U.S. Army post in Frederick and not in Wuhan, China, where it was first identified.

It’s a notion that China has spread in what Steve S. Sin, a University of Maryland, College Park researcher of international security and influence operations, called a disinformation campaign to deflect blame for China’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic. Because the Maryland installation has a long history of research involving dangerous germs, at one time seeking to weaponize some of them for biological warfare, there’s a certain logic to setting a coronavirus conspiracy theory there, he said.

“The best lie is founded on a kernel of truth,” said Sin, a division director at the university’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism.

One kernel that Chinese officials and their state-run media have latched onto stems from July 2019, when concerns over the handling of wastewater prompted the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt some research at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, or USAMRIID, one of the labs at Fort Detrick.

USAMRIID officials said no bugs leaked out of authorized areas and that it resumed full operations in March 2020.

By then, the coronavirus, which first appeared in Wuhan, had spawned a full-blown pandemic. As U.S. president, Republican Donald Trump took to calling it the “Chinese virus” and another racist slur.

In return, China began to cast suspicions on the Army lab’s alleged role in its spread, demanding in official statements, social media posts and articles in official media outlets that the U.S. open the post to inspectors and talk about the “real reason” for the lab’s closure.

“What secrets are hidden in suspicion-shrouded #FortDetrick & the 200+ #US bio-labs all over the world?” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted this spring.

Over time, the conspiracy theory has mutated — like the virus itself — into different variants. Among them: that an Army reservist brought the virus from Fort Detrick to the Military World Games in Wuhan in October 2019, or that a July 2019 outbreak of a respiratory disease at a nursing home in Virginia was actually the first COVID cluster, brought there by — as you might guess — a worker from the fort.

Army officials, for their part, say Fort Detrick had nothing to do with triggering the pandemic, which health experts say began with a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan at the end of 2019 that were caused by a new coronavirus.

“USAMRIID had absolutely no involvement with the novel coronavirus” until more than a year later, the laboratory said in a statement. The lab received its first sample of the virus from the CDC in February 2020 so its scientists could aid in an effort to create COVID tests. The lab went on to develop animal models for vaccine testing.

China contended that it’s the U.S. that engages in disinformation. Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden in May ordered American intelligence officials to step up efforts to investigate competing scenarios on how the virus originated in China, from human contact with an infected animal or a laboratory accident.

“China has been opposed to disinformation of any kind, including the disinformation that the virus was caused by a ‘lab leak’ in Wuhan,” said Liu Pengyu, a spokesman at the Chinese embassy in Washington, in an email responding to The Baltimore Sun’s questions about his government’s focus on Fort Detrick.

“We support a science-based study of the origins, and we also call for greater international solidarity to control the spread of the virus,” he said. “We have noted that the US side has not responded to international concerns about Fort Detrick, and would advise response from it to remove such concerns.”

Michael Ricci, spokesman for Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, said Maryland officials are confident the Chinese suggestions are “baseless.”

“We’re proud of the leading role Fort Detrick has played in the nation’s response to the pandemic,” he said. “What’s most important is that people do not share, spread, or legitimize information.”

On the streets in Frederick, the conspiracy theory tends to be met with dismissive laughter and outright rejection.

Democratic Mayor Michael O’Connor, who lives not far from Fort Detrick, said he goes to sleep every night unworried about any threat from the base. The notion that it somehow was the source of the pandemic? No constituents have brought any such concerns to him, he said.

“It just seems so far-fetched to me,” O’Connor said.

Rick Weldon, a former state delegate who heads the Frederick County Chamber of Commerce, said he doubts the Chinese have convinced many locals.

“There are probably some folks who have a questionable connection to reality … who might believe it,” he said.

Weldon said the area has increasingly evolved from a rural county seat to the kind of place where tech companies such as Leidos and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca are part of the landscape — with the kind of highly educated workforce they require.

That is in keeping with Fort Detrick’s own shift over time, as it branched out from its original biowarfare mission into research on cancer, infectious diseases and vaccines. It’s the area’s largest employer, and its workers are a big part of community life, Weldon said. “They’re the Little League coaches, they’re in the pews at church.”

During the base’s more forbidding past, scientists sought to develop biological and chemical warfare weapons — including a secret CIA mind-control program using megadoses of LSD and electroshocks on human subjects, a plan to drop yellow fever-infected mosquitoes by plane over an enemy and seemingly all manner of “dirty tricks.”

But by 1969, Republican President Richard Nixon ordered Fort Detrick to conduct only defensive and preventive work.

Still, highly toxic materials remained, raising concern that they could leak, or be misused. There were incidents when carcinogens contaminated groundwater in the previous century and anthrax spores escaped a lab in 2002.

Most notoriously, federal authorities linked a Fort Detrick scientist to the 2001 anthrax mail attacks that killed five people, a connection that not everyone accepts.

It is perhaps unsurprising, given its intrigue-filled history, that Fort Detrick has attracted conspiracy theories over the years. In the 1980s, the Soviet Union started a disinformation campaign that HIV was created at Fort Detrick.

Sin said the HIV campaign provided a model for China.

“China learned a lot about influence operations from Russia,” he said. “Copy, paste, change it to COVID-19.”

Sin said the coronavirus conspiracy theory has had far more success within China than in the U.S., where it has not gained much traction.

Even in Frederick, it has created few ripples.

Dave Ziedelis, executive director of Visit Frederick, the county’s tourism council, said he had to turn to Google to refresh his memory of what little he heard about it.

“It doesn’t come up as a topic of discussion,” he said.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said resident Francis Bowie on a recent afternoon as he cooled off on a shaded bench outside a supermarket near his home.

The retired C-124 airborne radio operator noted that the first COVID cases were reported abroad and on the West Coast — before any reports in Frederick.

“I guess everybody wants to put the blame on somebody else,” he said.

Matt Sharkey, who heads a community advisory board that monitors labs at Fort Detrick and elsewhere in the county, said at a recent board meeting that there is a Reddit forum on the Chinese theory. He said he doesn’t believe it, but USAMRIID and other Fort Detrick labs don’t help themselves on such issues. The board asked the labs to send biosafety experts to its meetings, but they haven’t, he said.

“If they’re being publicly criticized in that manner, this just shows how being nontransparent makes them look like the bad guys,” Sharkey said.

Cheryl Turlik doesn’t believe China’s theory. She has her own: The coronavirus was a bioweapon released “to stop President Trump from being reelected.”

The retired nurse said she contracted COVID in May. She won’t get vaccinated after seeing videos her friends from church and conservative circles shared, convincing her that “lots of people” will die from the shots.

“You probably think I’m a wacko,” Turlik said. “I really don’t care.”

A consumer of conservative media, including Fox News commentators Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, Turlik said what she calls the mainstream liberal media has misled the public.

“When you are fed lies day after day for five years, you become brainwashed,” Turlik said. “You will believe whatever they tell you.”

In a sense, Turlik represents what Sin says is China’s problem in convincing those in the U.S.

“Not even the American conspiracy theorists are buying it,” he said. “They’re not propagating China’s message.”

Still, public health experts remain concerned about how COVID has spawned a veritable cottage industry of mis- and disinformation — about the virus, the vaccines, alleged remedies and various political conspiracies. The U.S surgeon general this month called the “info-demic” dangerous to people’s health.

Tara Kirk Sell, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, sees the Chinese disinformation as part of the larger “politicization of COVID” that’s aided by how easily messages spread these days.

“Misinformation and disinformation have always been around. But because of the internet and social media, they have a much greater range,” said Sell, who wrote a report this year on combating the spread of bad COVID information for the school’s Center for Health Security.

In the end, the back-and-forth between China and the U.S. only serves to sow discord at a time when unity is needed in the continuing fight against COVID, she said.

“We need to have a global effort, and more division and blame doesn’t help that,” Sell said. “The blame game is not helping us with what we need now, which is getting the rest of the world vaccinated.”

Meanwhile, Lucy Hogan, no relation to the governor, buried her husband.

As improving health metrics and greater availability of vaccines have many anxious to resume their pre-pandemic lives, COVID nonetheless continues to claim victims — in the past month, more than 500 in Maryland. And more than 2,400 people per day died of COVID-19 in the U.S. during February 2021.

For their loved ones, the pandemic is present, not past.

“The fact that people are, ‘OK now we’re coming out of this and we’re moving on,’ and I’m not coming out of it and will never be over it — it’s just really hard at this moment,” said Lucy Hogan, 69, of Frederick, Maryland.

A retired professor at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, she and her husband, Kevin Hogan, both contracted COVID in December. While she eventually recovered, her husband, a dermatologist and former Navy doctor, was in and out of the hospital before he died March 1.

He was 70 years old. Having met in college, they had been married almost 48 years. Family and friends are a comfort, as are the stacks of letters and flowers that she’s received. Still, she watches less news these days, particularly when it’s about the loosening of restrictions.

“We have a long way to go,” she said.

Public and mental health experts would agree. Not only is it too soon to declare victory over the still-spreading and mutating coronavirus, they say, but there is also the emotional fallout of what is now a year of extraordinary sadness, separation and disruption, the effects of which will outlast the pandemic itself.

“The pain still exists even as we open up again,” said Veronica Land-Davis, executive director of Roberta’s House in Baltimore, a nonprofit that added a COVID survivors group to its bereavement programs last year. “People were dying, and people couldn’t be with their loved ones. People couldn’t gather.”

While some restrictions on gatherings are lifting, Jennifer Ray of Nottingham, Maryland, said she has not yet determined how to have what she knows will be a well-attended memorial for her husband Rob Ray, 52, a contractor, active member of the Jaycees and sports fan who was “loved by so many.”

“It’s still a pandemic, and my husband died of COVID. I’m not going to have a superspreader event,” said Ray, 44, a civil engineer and former national president of the Jaycees.

She and her husband both tested positive for COVID on Feb. 9 and initially she had the worse case, she said. A week later, she began feeling better but the condition of her husband, who had diabetes and other medical problems, worsened. He had to be rushed to the hospital, where he was placed on a ventilator.

Another week later, on Feb. 23, he died. It was only then that his wife was allowed to go to his bedside.

“They tried to give me gloves,” she said. “I said, ‘No, I’m touching my husband.'”

Now Ray watches as others get the vaccine that the couple had previously signed up for, and has heard that perhaps some ineligible people have found ways to get it. It may not have saved her husband, she said, but it adds to her feeling that they followed the rules, waited their turns and were left unprotected.

“Shame on us for being decent people,” she said.

Losing the fight

As a hospital chaplain, Allen Siegel thinks that by now he has “walked with” dozens of people as they’ve battled and ultimately lost their fight against COVID, and helped their families and the nursing staff deal with the loss.

But as for the country as a whole? Having been “in survival mode” for a year, it has yet to deal with the emotional toll of losing more than 536,000 Americans, a nearly unfathomable number, said Siegel, director of spiritual care services at the University of Maryland Upper Chesapeake Health system in Harford County.

Families, some of whom have lost more than one member, have been devastated, he said. Bereft survivors are left feeling everything from abandonment to anxiety to even guilt, particularly if they were the ones who inadvertently brought the virus home, Siegel said.

He and others who have counseled people through their loss say it has helped that President Joe Biden, unlike his predecessor, has memorialized COVID victims in highly public ways, starting with a lantern-lit ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on the eve of his inauguration in January, and again in a March 11 speech marking the one-year anniversary of the official declaration of the pandemic.

That recognition is important for survivors, said Siegel, a former paramedic and nurse who became an ordained interfaith minister.

“It’s the sense of, ‘I’m not alone. I have permission to publicly acknowledge my loss,'” he said.

This becomes even more critical as the focus turns to resuming the old way of life, counselors say, something impossible for those who have lost a loved one to COVID.

“They’re stuck in their grief, and they see a world moving on,” said Julie Kays, the manager of the Counseling Center at Stella Maris, the long-term care facility in Timonium, Maryland. “For anyone who is grieving, it’s hard to feel like the world is moving on.”

At Roberta’s House, COVID’s effects are felt particularly keenly. It was started as an extension of the bereavement services offered by March Funeral Homes, among the largest African American-owned mortuary companies in the country.

With the pandemic taking an outsized toll on Black and other minority communities, COVID comes up not just at the weekly online support group for its survivors but at the other bereavement groups Roberta’s House offers, said Annette March-Grier, its president and co-founder.

From her vantage point, the crisis is far from over.

“I had one lady say, in June, ‘I went to the dollar store and bought 10 sympathy cards. Then I ran out of them and I bought 10 more. I ran out again and went a third time,'” March-Grier said.

“I can’t see that there’s any relief yet,” she said. “I tell people, the light is at the end of the tunnel, but this isn’t over yet.”

Loved ones died without them

At some still-to-be-determined point, the pandemic will recede enough that life will return to a more recognizable and familiar place. At Rebecca’s House, they hope to switch from videoconferencing back to in-person group meetings.

But the trauma of the pandemic will remain, many expect, particularly for those who had to stand on the other side of a hospital window, or even further, as their loved ones died without them.

“The bottom line is connection,” said the Rev. Harold A. Carter, Jr., senior pastor of New Shiloh Baptist Church in Baltimore.

“We’re social creatures, and when you can’t be there, that’s the sting.”

One of Carter’s parishioners, Larry Glover, lost two siblings to COVID, one in April and the other in August. Both lived in Florida, and because of the pandemic he was unable to travel to see them or attend their funerals, an experience he called “terrible.”

“I look at pictures, and I think about them,” said Glover, 69. “It’s something you have to deal with.”

Some anticipate the grieving process, delayed by the inability to gather for funerals, to continue — among those who lost family or friends, as well as those who lost pieces of their lives: the high school graduation, the big wedding celebration, the simple marking of passing from one life stage to another.

Some of that could and was replaced with online gatherings, which sometimes had the benefit of allowing those at a distance to participate more easily than they might otherwise have, said J. Shep Jeffreys, a Columbia-based psychologist who specializes in grief and loss.

But for others, the moment to be together passed. That’s not something that can be recovered, even after the pandemic fades, Jeffreys said.

“What it has done to our world,” he said, “I don’t think we’ll ever be the same.”