While a lot of us are enjoying the loosening of COVID-19 restrictions and starting to get back out in the world again, the death toll in the United States from the virus is nearing another grim milestone.
We are inching near 600,000 total deaths in the country, and that means hundreds of thousands more people who are grieving those losses.
Dr. Mary-Frances O'Connor wants to better understand how those people are experiencing grief.
O’Connor is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Arizona, and she says from survivor’s guilt to not being able to say goodbye, losing a loved one to COVID-19 was often a very different experience than losing them to something else. The Show spoke with her to learn about how pandemic grieving differs from other losses.