In The Pandemic's First Year, Three Huge Losses in One Family

In the year since the World Health Organization first declared a global pandemic, on March 11, 2020, millions of families have endured the excruciating rise and fall of the U.S. outbreak. The waves of sickness have left them with untold wounds, even as hospitalizations ebb and infections subside.

Some Americans have experienced tragedy upon tragedy, losing multiple family members to the virus in a matter of months.

For the Aldaco family of Phoenix, Ariz., it shattered a generation of men.

In just six months, three brothers — Jose, Heriberto Jr. and Gonzalo Aldaco — were lost to COVID-19, each at different moments in the pandemic: Jose died in July, Heriberto Jr. in December, and Gonzalo most recently, in February.

Their deaths are now among more than 530,000 in the United States, where, even as millions are vaccinated, the virus still leaves families grieving new deaths every day. The U.S. mortality from COVID-19 now averages around 1,400 deaths per day.

"Those three men, they drove the family, they were like the strong pillars, the bones of the family and now they're all gone," says Miguel Lerma, 31, whose grandfather Jose Aldaco raised him as his own son.