Four years after cases of COVID-19 were detected in the United States, over one million people and counting have died from the virus.
Since 2021, the county has been discussing and working on a memorial to remember those locally who died from COVID-19. The memorial is set to be finished later this year, and will be located at the Monterey County government offices in Salinas, between the Monterey County courthouse and county administrative office building.
It’s no coincidence that the memorial is based in Salinas. The city has seen a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases and deaths: Of the 899 people in Monterey County who died from the virus, 44.7% are from Salinas.
County supervisor Luis Alejo says that’s in part due to its large proportion of essential workers, including Latino farmworkers.
“They were never able to shelter-in-place and they kept working, sometimes side-by-side to other coworkers,” he recalled.
Alejo, whose district includes the majority of Salinas, championed the memorial.
“We're trying to fundraise … to have a permanent place to remember all these lives lost so that our community doesn't forget, because they were people that we love, and we cared about,” he said.
COVID-19 still continues to kill and disable. Hundreds to over a thousand people a week die in the U.S. from COVID-19 or related complications. A new survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that millions of adults live with Long COVID — symptoms, sometimes debilitating, that persist long after the acute COVID infection fades. Multiple reinfections of COVID-19 increase risk for bad health outcomes.
Memorials can be part of the effort to acknowledge the COVID-19 losses people have experienced and are still experiencing, says Kristin Urquiza, the founder of Marked by COVID, a group of people who have lost a loved one to the virus. Members advocate for policies centering those most impacted from the pandemic, including those living with Long COVID, and document lives lost to COVID-19 through a national augmented reality memorial.
“These memorials really … signify this sort of line in the sand that this [is] real,” Urquiza said. “And then they serve as places where we can continue to talk about and point to the ongoing consequences of the pandemic.”
Monterey County memorial designed to be a “peaceful, tranquil place”
Monterey County spokesperson Nicholas Pasculli says construction is on track to start in July, per an update presented to the board of supervisors last year.
“All systems are go at this point in time, and we're feeling very optimistic about the timeline,” he said.
The memorial will be five staggered glass panels stationed in metal footings, each with a different color to reflect the varied flora and fauna in the respective county districts.
The location was chosen for a number of reasons, Pasculli added. It’s a public area, a place of county business and a transitory space into downtown Salinas. Plus, it’s somewhat insulated from traffic.
“The breezeway itself, lined with trees and landscaping, is just a very peaceful, tranquil place,” he said. “We feel that’s really appropriate.”
Alejo agreed, adding that the “public square” allows people to remember and reflect.
“We're trying to stress the importance of these lives, and that in every home, there is an emptiness in those families’ hearts, and there's an empty chair, when the holidays and special gatherings come up,” he said. “We know that there's that pain that still exists for many of our families.”
Information on how to memorialize people’s names is forthcoming, Pasculli said. The county plans to have a virtual memory wall on its website when the physical sculpture is complete, and is also hoping to have “some type of donor recognition on site.”
Funds are still being collected for the memorial, and additional funds will go toward maintenance of the sculpture.
COVID-19 memorials locally and nationwide
The physical Monterey County memorial isn’t the first local move to recognize COVID-19 deaths.
Last year, Salinas Valley Health unveiled a community art project called the Rose River Memorial. In 2022, Watsonville artists completed a memorial sculpture at the upper Struve Slough. At Lovers Point in 2021, county residents gathered to mourn loved ones lost to the virus.
Alejo brought forth a resolution to the board of supervisors in 2022 declaring the first Monday in March the COVID-19 Victims and Survivors Memorial Day.
Marked by COVID founder Urquiza said the national grievers movement has championed similar memorial efforts nationwide — including a national memorial day.
Part of the organization’s work is mapping memorials like the sculpture being built in Salinas.
To Urquiza, every memorial is reminiscent of a town hall and square that “community members can utilize to talk about not just what’s happening in the past, but what continues to happen to this very day.”
“There's nothing that will ever bring back my dad,” Urquiza said. “But by golly, I want his death to mean something. We need stronger public health systems. We need to be upgrading our indoor air ventilation systems so that everyone has access to essential services and public spaces … we're working to pretend like this [pandemic] is over, when it's far from over.”
KAZU is capitalizing the term Long COVID in this story, which is the preference of patient-led organizations advocating for those living with the illness, also known as “post-acute COVID syndrome” or PACS. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Health also capitalize the term.
