What a year, which from the beginning was marked and transformed by the pandemic that continues to have the world in suspense, after expanding from China, as well as by the fear that a war would break out between the United States and Iran and the emergence of a plague of locusts that began to move around the world.
Yes, all that happened only in January.
A year marked by elections in the United States, racial protests, disasters like an explosion in Beirut and, of course, the coronavirus.
At the same time that society was trying to get used to the changes, amid heartbreaking images of mass graves, crowded hospitals, and heartless cities, 2020 was also defined by other great events.
Among them, the
impeachment
process of
Donald Trump and later a
combative
presidential election
full of controversy.
Like a huge and deadly blast in Beirut.
Not to mention the
hit of natural disasters
with hurricanes in Central America, fires in California, Oregon and Washington, or the continued deforestation in the Amazon.
And remember the killer hornets?
That was also this year.
But there have also been
moments of lightness, joy and hope as
the months have passed: people forming community amid protests for racial justice or people relearning to take our lives back to the new normal.
They are postcards that suggest that this too will pass.
These are the images that tell 2020 in all its splendor;
the losses, the loneliness, the mysteries and, yes, the hope.
Unprecedented: the woes
The word of the year, according to Dictionary.com, is
unprecedented
, unprecedented, never seen before.
It is a good way to discover the worst pandemic the world has ever experienced.
The first
news of a new virus came in late December and grew toward January
, when Wuhan, China, where SARS-CoV2 first emerged, began building mobile, war-like hospitals.
Medical personnel in Wuhan, China, in February 2020 when it was the epicenter of global infections.China Daily via Reuters /
The tragedy, obviously, escalated to levels well ... unprecedented throughout the year.
The new coronavirus proved to be far more deadly than the flu, despite what some politicians and ordinary people argued.
Especially because at the beginning, doctors kept trying to see what treatment might work (to date there is no specific treatment for COVID-19, although there are some drugs that reduce the side effects of the disease).
That led to the first wave of closures, an attempt to reduce infections and contagions by reducing the number of people on the streets, a measure that unfortunately also had strong economic impacts.
A freeway to Los Angeles that appears empty in April, amid the first closures due to coronavirus infections in California.Reuters
Although life did not stop with quarantines.
Much less deaths, either from COVID-19 (more than 1.5 million people whose lives have been taken by the pandemic as of mid-December) or from other causes.
Commemorations of prominent figures around the world
still followed
when they lost their lives
, from tributes to athletes like Kobe Bryant and Diego Maradona to wakes of honor for people like Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and civil rights activist and legislator John Lewis.
[Kobe Bryant, Naya Rivera, Ruth Bader Ginsburg: the most influential deceased in 2020]
Layoffs for two sports stars: Kobe Bryant, who died in January along with his daughter Gigi, and Diego Maradona, who died at the end of November.
There were more tragedies throughout the year, such as forest fires on the US West Coast or the onslaught of two hurricanes within a few weeks in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
The roofs of what used to be houses in San Pedro Sula after Hurricane Eta hit Honduras in November.US Air Force via Reuters
Despite closures and quarantines around the world, high levels of contamination continued and, in the Amazon, trees continued to be cut down such that in 2020 there was record deforestation in the Brazilian part of the largest tropical forest in the world. Reuters /
Like an outbreak that shook all of Lebanon and, by its force, even neighboring countries, which was the
result of mismanagement by the
chemical
authorities
in the port of Beirut.
The outbreak sparked social protests.
Smoke after the explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon, on September 10, 2020.AP /
Raise your voice
The pandemic also did not silence other demonstrations in many parts of the world, whether they were political protests in Peru that threw down a president that the people did not want, the
marches to demand accountability from authorities and racial justice in the United States
or even, the mobilizations against the protocols designed to reduce COVID-19 infections.
A vote in extraordinary circumstances
The 2020 US elections from the beginning were going to be striking, as the possible re-election of Donald Trump, a particularly divisive president.
But voting became much more so as it unfolded amid the pandemic, forcing many states to
rethink the way people would be able to exercise their right to vote
(with the expansion of mail-in ballots).
The counts also changed in relation to past elections, taking longer due to the difficulty of tabulating all the legally cast votes that were sent through the
Postal Service,
which had been experiencing significant delays in its deliveries for months.
[This is how 2020 has changed our relationship with the Internet and technology]
The voting line outside a church that served as a ballot box in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on Nov. 3.
The elections, and the modality to participate, also changed with the expansion of the vote by mail and the measures of healthy distance.
The election outcome was also especially combative, as
Trump refused to acknowledge the outcome
- a triumph for Democrat Joe Biden on his third try and a historic victory for Kamala Harris as the first female vice president-elect who is black and of descent. Asian–
and tried to reverse it in many ways.
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris join hands on August 20, towards the end of the Democratic National Convention.
Reuters /
The election even had its unexpectedly curious elements, such as a Republican campaign team press conference that, apparently by mistake, was held at a garden store that organizers possibly thought was a four-star hotel.
Among the strange and curious postcards left by the 2020 election is a press conference by Rudy Giuliani, former mayor and attorney for Donald Trump, at a Philadelphia company called the Four Seasons Landscaping Company.
Trump's team apparently believed the venue they had set aside for the event was a Four Seasons hotel.
Mysteries and a new normal
Towards the end of the year, a new mystery attracted the world's attention: the appearance of a metal object in the middle of the Utah desert, followed by similar monoliths in other parts of the planet.
It was like a sign that 2020 could surprise us but, this time, for the better.
Various groups around the world have become
accustomed to using a mask,
which is proven to be the best way to avoid contagion: whoever uses it protects himself and others, which in turn, by covering their mouth and nose, protect those who surround them.
[Can public transportation survive the pandemic?]
The mask has even been adopted by remote communities, such as various indigenous peoples of South America.
It's a sign of how the world has been
rethinking how to do things it once took for granted
, whether it's getting ready for a marathon or walking a dog down the street.
Pedro dos Santos, from an indigenous community in Manaus, Brazil, in May.
The original peoples of the continent were among the hardest hit by the pandemic as it is difficult for them to access the necessary medical care.
People have come to terms with the new normal in a variety of ways, as can be seen in the following images of
typical life events - weddings, graduations, classes - that keep happening
except with caution.
In June there was a very special concert: the Gran Teatro Liceu in Barcelona reopened its doors with a remote event in which the in-person audience consisted of almost 3,000 floors, while humans were able to listen with a live broadcast over the internet.
Athletes like British triathlete Lloyd Bebbington have found new ways to train, including using a home pool.
Reuters /
A school in Thailand, where schools have reopened since July 2020 with protocols such as the use of Plexiglas.Reuters /
Santa Claus also takes care of himself amid a pandemic: to keep the magic of Christmas without risk of contagion for children waiting for gifts, a group found a way for minors in London to communicate with Santa Claus by video call.Reuters /
Towards the end of 2020, furthermore, there were hopeful hints that
at some point things will return
, to some extent, to the way we used to be.
With a view to a better future
To close the year, at least there are certain elements that suggest that although the infections will continue for a while, as will the economic and social effects of COVID-19, there is
beginning to be a light at the end of the tunnel.
The US Congress has finally reached a budget agreement that includes a $ 600 aid check (which is still far from what the vast majority of the population needs).
[More than a million people have received the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine in the US]
And
coronavirus vaccines
have also been promoted in an unprecedented way: the urgency for an injection to reduce infections mobilized pharmaceutical companies and governments around the world for a process that usually takes much longer (in part because there is not so much global demand) happened in just months.
The inoculations with emergency authorizations have already started with the doses of Pfizer and Moderna, with which,
little by little, the population will be protected
and will no longer be susceptible to the spread of SARS-CoV2 (at least for a few months, since the duration of immunity remains uncertain).
And a sizeable portion of people who were infected continue to recover:
A man who spent 52 days in intensive care at a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, due to COVID-19 was able to spend a few minutes in the sun in September as part of his recovery.
As the world did in January 2020, towards December of this year it is important to look back at Wuhan, China.
Except that, this time, the images from there paint a better panorama, of the possibility of recovering pieces of our previous lives throughout 2021.
Life has returned to relative normalcy in Wuhan in December 2020, a year after the outbreak there.
People can now safely go to nightclubs without necessarily wearing face masks. Reuters /
Preparing to mark the New Year in Times Square, New York, on December 21, 2020.Reuters /