The

New York Times today replaced its usual front page with the names of hundreds

of Americans who have died from the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Devoid

of the expected pictures and ad spots that would accompany the headline of the

day’s lead story, the Times instead published the names of one thousand victims

of the virus on its front page and three others inside the newspaper under the

gut-wrenching headline “U.S. DEATHS NEAR 100,000, AN INCALCULABLE LOSS.”

The

media house made the unusual, but pointed, decision as the United States creeps

ever closer to the previously unimaginable death toll of 100,000, far more

casualties than any other nation in the world.

With

its toll at 97,211, according to the John Hopkins University’s virus tracker,

the US accounts for 26 per cent of the global tally.

What’s

worse is the death toll could be greater as many victims could have died at

home or not had their deaths attributed to COVID-19 for whatever reason.

“We

knew that there should be some way to try to reckon with that number,”

Simone Landon, an assistant editor of the Times’ Graphics desk, said in a behind the scenes feature.

The

1,000 names aimed to put faces to the victims as “none were mere numbers” the

Times’ descriptions said.

Included in its tribute were:

Lila Fenwick, 87, “the first black woman to

graduate from Harvard Law”,

Romi Cohn, 91, “saved 56 Jewish families from

the Gestapo.”

April Dunn, 33, was an “advocate for

disability rights.”

Frank Gabrin, 60, was an “emergency room

doctor who died in his husband’s arms”

Philip Kahn, 100, “World War II veteran whose

twin died in the Spanish Flu epidemic a century ago.”

The US is expected to cross the dreadful

milestone sometime in June.