The Year In Portraits Share The People We Met In A Year Like No Other Three months into 2020, the world shut down. A pandemic upended daily life as streets emptied, schools closed and businesses shuttered. Millions lost jobs. Our health care system was tested like never before. And more than 300,000 Americans lost their lives, including over 11,000 here in Massachusetts. The pandemic also exacerbated existing inequities in our society, as those already struggling battled additional challenges: isolation, a lack of resources, profound levels of stress and deep personal loss. COVID-19 exposed long-standing stresses within and among our communities. We experienced a national racial reckoning in the wake of police killings of Black men and women, a rise in unrest around the country and an ever-deepening political and social divide.