Leaders mark a year since first man in state died of COVID-19
Last spring, a 55-year-old horse trainer who lived near Bath, Carmine Fusco, developed a cough and fever, the telltale symptoms of the novel coronavirus just beginning its rampage across the United States.
Admitted to the St. Luke’s University Health Network campus in Fountain Hill, Fusco died on March 18 — the first Pennsylvanian to succumb to the virus that had emerged from China and spread around the world.
Who, at the time, could have believed that Fusco’s death would be followed by so many more?
“No one could have anticipated that one year later there would be nearly 25,000 deaths just in Pennsylvania, 540,000 deaths in the U.S. and nearly 2.75 million worldwide,” said Rabbi Hazzan Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which held a multifaith virtual memorial Thursday to commemorate pandemic victims.
Tree of Life was itself the scene of an indelible tragedy in 2018, when a gunman who allegedly harbored anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant sentiments killed 11 people there. So its sponsorship lent the memorial a particular gravity. Sorrow predated the pandemic and sorrow will follow, but the collected wisdom of the faiths represented Thursday — Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam — offered some measure of light.
“Although healing is a long process, we endeavor this evening to help you find ways to move along the path to healing,” Myers said.
Fusco’s story encapsulated the horror of the disease. He was one of four in his family killed by COVID-19. The others were his mother, brother and sister, all of whom lived in New Jersey.
“I don’t know why this virus picked my family,” one relative told The Morning Call at the time.
In a brief message taped for the memorial, Gov. Tom Wolf called Thursday a solemn day and said the three vaccines now being used in Pennsylvania promise a return to normal life.
“Far too many of our friends, neighbors and loved ones have been struck down by this pandemic,” he said. “After a year of hardship, it can be hard to be believe healing is possible [but] we all have reason to hope. Just as we got through the past year by standing together, we will move forward together.”
Som Sharma of the HinduJain Temple of Monroeville said those lost to the pandemic did not die in vain.
“In your deaths you made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of humanity,” he said. “You challenged and helped humanity to wake up, take notice of the pandemic and act resolutely to find a cure.”
The Rev. Liddy Barlow, executive minister of the Christian Associates of Southwest Pennsylvania, lit a candle for the victims and read a portion of a poem called “Quarantine Quatrains” by Malcolm Guite, a British poet and clergyman.
The words evoke the lasting imprint of lives cut short:
“Behind each number one beloved face/A light in life whom no one can replace,/ Leaves on this world a signature, a trace,/A gleaning and a memory of grace.”