In America, a few days in March 2020 echo two years later

By TED ANTHONY
AP National Writer

The conversations went like this: It will be just a few days. It can be kept at bay. There will be some inconvenience, sure, but the world will merely be paused. Just a short break, out of an abundance of caution. Certainly not for two years. And certainly not for hundreds of thousands of Americans who were among us at that moment in mid-March 2020 and who, plain and simple, aren’t here anymore. It was billed by the president as just a temporary moment of time. But a few days became a few weeks. And a few months has become where, two years later, we are today.