/ Lights lined the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. on the evening before President Joe Biden's inauguration, Jan 19, 2021, in a memorial to lives lost to the coronavirus pandemic. The news during 2020 was filled with tragic scenes of families visiting their senior loved ones through windows, health care professionals breaking down over the lonely deaths of patients in intensive care wards, and funerals carried out without families receiving the caresses and comfort of loved ones. There have been some points of hope. For one thing, the Tar Heel state still experienced more births than deaths overall last year, according to provisional resident data provided by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. In total, 115,076 residents of North Carolina were born, while 87,987 community members died.