Last year was filled with days that felt like years, but none was longer than March 11, the news-packed, life-altering day when a series of decisions were made that would have been unthinkable just days before. Famous people got Covid, travel routes were closed, sports were cancelled, freezers were stocked, toilet paper was hoarded, and the beginning of the great shutdown was upon us. From Buzzfeed: Tom Hanks, The NBA, And COVID’s Day Of Reckoning In The US: An Oral History.

+ NYT: These stories offer a look at one year of loss and disruption.

+ WaPo: Sorrow and stamina, defiance and despair. It’s been a year.

+ Photos that capture the range of emotion we felt in the first year of the pandemic. (While it’s been a long year, it’s worth reflecting on the almost unimaginable pace at which vaccines went from an urgent need to being injected into arms. At the risk of being oxymoronic: It is a scientific miracle.)