Coronavirus: USA Today Front Page Pays Tribute To Americans Who Died From COVID-19

The Wednesday cover of USA Today pays homage to 100,000 Americans who have passed away due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Overlaid in black backdrop, the number 100,000 is typed in an oversized font situated below 100 faces of COVID-19 victims. USA Today, an internationally distributed American news publication, reportedly chose to run their front page with outline, following the official counts of the death toll expected to pass 100,000 very soon.

According to CNN, the issue’s cover page also shows how their use of 100 photos fit into the overall — a scale of the lives that have been lost to the pandemic so far.

Contents of the issue contain a four-page special coverage as seen on the cover. An essay penned by author and journalist Mitch Albom on May 3 is also taken in by the publication’s Wednesday issue, with the author’s story heads daubed on the upper right corner of the paper’s cover.

In his timely essay, Albom wrote about the calamitous ruin brought about by the global health scare, calling the crisis “legitimate, serious stuff, and a fear that will surely try our patience. ”

The columnist highlighted the dangers of reopening businesses just for fear of economic ruin. Amid the rife of COVID-19, people have fallen prey to impatience and restlessness which, according to Albom, will be the people’s “new silent enemy.”

“The problem is, coronavirus is not done with us. It doesn’t get bored. It doesn’t follow our timetable. It will hang around as undeterred as a shadow. You go inside, you think it’s gone. You come outside, it’s waiting,” he wrote.

USA Today’s Wednesday issue followed a few days after The New York Times published the names of 1,000 coronavirus victims on its front page last Sunday (May 24), CNN reported. Times national editor Marc Lacey told Euronews network that people have been “crying over their newspapers.”

"We're getting calls and emails and social media posts from relatives of some of those people who found their relatives' names,” Lacey shared referring to the Times’ Sunday cover issue.

Meanwhile, with regards to the national COVID-19 death toll, Dr. Anthony Fauci along with a number of experts have said that official counts “…is almost certainly higher.”

A Times opinion column by Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal revealed that failing to tally true and accurate accounts of coronavirus cases will only add insult to the already tumultuous tragedy.

“For states, avoiding robust testing and reporting is a good way to make sure new cases decrease for 14 days (a C.D.C. recommendation for reopening). But it deprives those same states of crucial information for rational decisions,” Rosenthal penned.

Based on CNN health's records, the U.S. currently has 1,681,418 COVID-19 cases and 98,929 deaths to date.