Sorrow and stamina, defiance and despair. It’s been a year.

March 11: The World Health Organization declares the novel coronavirus a pandemic. Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says he is “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction.”

Actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, say they’ve tested positive for the virus while at work in Australia. Hanks is the first American celebrity to announce a diagnosis.

The NBA suspends its season. Most college and pro leagues follow suit. A dozen states close schools. Many people begin working from home. American life grinds to a halt.

March 12: Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, testifies before Congress that the U.S. testing system is not working. “Yeah, it is a failing,” he says. “Let’s admit it.”

March 13: President Donald Trump declares a national emergency.

March 15: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says Americans should cancel gatherings of 50 or more people for two months. Several states impose shutdown orders, closing bars and restaurants and banning large groups.

March 16: Trump tells Americans to avoid gathering in groups of more than 10 and to stop eating in restaurants and taking nonessential trips for the next 15 days. It is the closest the federal government will come to calling for a nationwide shutdown.

March 17: The official U.S. death toll surpasses 100 — and experts predict it will rise quickly.

March 19: Trump tells Post associate editor Bob Woodward that he has intentionally misled Americans and minimized the danger: “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” as Woodward recounts later in his September book.

But it is everywhere. The virus tears through the Seattle region. It’s taking hold in New York City — and in Detroit, Chicago and New Orleans. More than 16,000 people are infected.

March 21: Nursing homes are the first hot spots. Residents account for at least a quarter of all deaths, and probably more. Once inside, the virus is “an almost perfect killing machine.”

March 23: Under pressure from conservatives, Trump says he’s considering nixing the guidelines for social distancing he announced a week earlier, saying: “We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”

March 26: The United States records its 1,000th official coronavirus death, fewer than 10 days after the toll passed 100. Behind every reported death, every data point on a curve or chart, is a name and a story.

March 28: Trouble with the national stockpile of emergency medical equipment emerges. State and hospital leaders are unable to secure enough masks, ventilators and other essential gear.

April 2: Most Americans are living under stay-at-home orders.

April 3: In a reversal, the federal government recommends that people wear masks in public. Trump emphasizes that mask-wearing is voluntary and says, “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.”

April 7: Emerging demographic data confirms that covid-19 is infecting and killing Black Americans at an alarming rate — a devastation that people in predominantly Black communities know all too well.

The virus is spreading at a head-spinning pace. In just one month, the United States has gone from about 1,000 cases to nearly 400,000. Almost 15,000 people are dead — a toll that won’t be fully revealed for weeks. Urban hospitals are nearing capacity.

April 11: The U.S. coronavirus death toll is the highest in the world, passing Italy.

‘Too much on humanity’

In the epicenter of the epicenter, the noise never stops. On the streets of Elmhurst, Queens, sirens wail day and night as ambulances transport the sick from their homes to the hospital. In one funeral home, the phone rings again and again.

“Christ have mercy,” says Omar Rodriguez, who does embalming at the Gerard J. Neufeld funeral home. Workers are tallying the covid-19 deaths they handled that day.

“It’s too many,” says Joe Neufeld Sr.

Outside Elmhurst Hospital Center — which is “filled to the brim” — Kamal Hossain lists his symptoms: “We cannot breathe properly, we had diarrhea, vomiting. My entire house has the same problem.”

Hossain’s wife works there, and he thinks she brought the virus home. It’s his third time trying to get care at the facility. The line outside stretches for hours. Local leaders are pleading for help.

Outside an overflowing funeral home in Brooklyn, authorities find dozens of bodies stored in moving trucks. For Tamisha Covington, who lost her mother, it is one indignity too many.

“Already, we’re grieving for our mothers, our family members, our friends,” she says. “This is too disrespectful to the dead. This is too disrespectful to us. This is too much on humanity.”

April 16: Four weeks after Trump declared a national emergency, 22 million Americans have filed for unemployment aid. It’s the steepest level of job loss since the Great Depression.

April 17: Trump tweets “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA,” encouraging protesters who are ignoring social distancing guidance and demanding that their states reopen. Shutdown opposition is spreading, aided by Trump and right-wing groups.

April 24: Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican and one of the last leaders to issue a stay-at-home order, allows business to reopen. Georgia is the first state to do so.

Even as Georgia bucks restrictions, rural counties in the state’s southwest are suffering some of the highest rates of covid-19 deaths per capita in the country. In the hardest-hit places, African Americans make up most of the population, and about 30 percent of residents live in poverty.

April 27: A Post investigation reveals for the first time the scope of the hidden death toll: The United States recorded an estimated 15,400 “excess deaths” in the pandemic’s first weeks — nearly two times as many as were publicly attributed to the virus at the time.

April 29: At an event with corporate executives, Trump says the virus will vanish: “It’s going to go. It’s going to leave. It’s going to be gone.”

April 30: The federal government’s social distancing guidelines expire, and most states push ahead with reopening plans.

But the virus is still spreading. Nearly 30,000 people are infected each day, and nearly 2,000 are dying. Every day.

May 1: From Michigan to California, gun rights supporters, anti-vaccination activists and business owners protest coronavirus restrictions. Some are heavily armed, some are displaying hate symbols.

‘Not afraid to use them’

They show up armed. One man brings a noose. Another, an ax. Others wear combat gear and carry long guns.

Across the country, people are protesting state-mandated shutdowns and social distancing orders — and their rhetoric is increasingly violent.

From the steps of the Michigan Capitol, Stefan Kril calls the governor “a criminal” and, with a snarl, adds that “she’s fired.” He turns to the crowd below and shouts: “Whoever’s in charge of her, fire her ass!”

Two weeks before, hundreds of protesters forced their way into the building, chanting “Our house!” and “Lock her up!” — a strain of anger that grips the world’s attention months later during the deadly siege at the U.S. Capitol.

Elsewhere, people wave signs calling for leaders to be hanged and crowd into local government meetings to accuse officials of “contributing to the demise of what was once the greatest nation in history” but is now “enslaved to a Communist Party.”

One of the men who brought guns into the Michigan Capitol in late April appears on a live stream from inside. “I don’t carry my guns for show. I am not afraid to use them,” William Null says. In five months, the FBI charges him and a dozen others in a plot to kidnap Whitmer.

May 15: Trump announces his administration’s vaccine development program. He dubs it Operation Warp Speed.

May 19: Forty-three states have begun at least some form of reopening, hoping to boost their economies. Seven never had stay-at-home orders.

May 24: The virus is surging across rural America, where populations are poorer, older and more prone to health issues. Rural counties now have some of the highest rates of covid-19 cases and deaths in the country, topping even the hardest-hit New York City boroughs.

May 25: Crowded beaches, parties and pools during Memorial Day weekend alarm health officials. One calls the scene an “international example of bad judgment.”

May 27: U.S. coronavirus deaths surpass 100,000. The toll goes unmarked by national requiem or collective mourning.

May 31: Millions flood streets across the country to protest the killing of George Floyd and police violence against Black Americans, sparking fears of a new round of virus outbreaks. Health officials will later say that the protests, which continue for days, probably did not cause a spike in cases.

June 3: A Post investigation finds that U.S. cities squandered early chances to protect Black residents from the virus. Poor data reporting obscured the disproportionate impact, many of the first testing sites were set up in areas with many White residents, and local governments targeted few education campaigns specifically to African Americans.

June 8: In the West and across the South, more than a dozen states set records for new infections reported. Many of these places had avoided the brunt of the pandemic through the spring.

June 17: “The numbers are very minuscule compared to what it was,” Trump says. “It’s dying out.”

In mid-June, new infections begin a sharp, month-long rise. Unemployment also hits a new level: 13 straight weeks in which more than 1 million people have filed for aid for the first time.

‘Like I was trapped in a box’

It feels like the walls are closing in. That’s how Jayden, 12, describes living in his parents’ car in Kissimmee, Fla. The pandemic stripped them of jobs and forced them into homelessness, part of an unprecedented wave of people who found themselves suddenly unemployed.

“It felt like I was trapped in a box,” Jayden says. “Like someone tossed me in a cage where the bars were thick, and it was like you can’t even stick your hand through it, and then they locked the cage and then disposed of the key.”

His parents, Sergine Lucien and Dave Marecheau, are trying to get Jayden and his sister a permanent home.

In Atlantic City, Donnell Johnson thought things were about to get better. Once homeless himself, he had a job lined up — but then the virus came and he never got to start.

“It seems like everything that was starting to look up for me and my family drastically changed within one day with this pandemic,” he says.

He’s not getting help from the government and his debt is growing.

“We are struggling,” he says. “There’s nowhere to turn to. Backed up in rent. Cable bill, phone bill, we’re backed up in everything.”

June 25: Americans are living through a split-screen pandemic. The country records its highest-ever single-day case count, yet leaders push ahead with reopenings.

June 26: The governors of Texas and Florida reverse course and shut down bars in their states as infections and hospitalizations soar.

July 8: Trump pressures the CDC to change guidance on school reopening and threatens to cut funding for schools that do not fully open for in-person learning.

July 11: Trump wears a mask in public for the first time, more than three months after his own public health officials recommended face coverings for all Americans.

July 13: A study finds that more than 5 million Americans lost their health insurance from February to May, the largest such loss in the country’s history.

The United States sets back-to-back records on July 16 and 17, recording nearly 150,000 new infections in 48 hours. Florida, Texas, California, Georgia and Arizona lead the country in reported cases.

July 27: Two coronavirus vaccines — one from Pfizer-BioNTech and one from Moderna — mark a major milestone: The beginning of 30,000-person trials, the final phase of testing.

July 31: The official U.S. death toll passes 150,000, a mark it was never expected to reach. Latinos and Native Americans represent an increasing proportion of the deaths.

Aug 1: A superintendent of schools in rural Arizona issues one of many warnings from educators thinking about reopening schools: “I’m sorry, but it’s a fantasy. Kids will get sick, or worse. Family members will die. Teachers will die.”

Aug. 3: Teachers across the country protest school reopenings, carrying symbolic gravestones and caskets. Meanwhile, hundreds of returning students and staff members test positive or enter quarantine, and Trump continues his pressure campaign to resume in-person learning.

Aug. 7: Nearly 500,000 people converge on Sturgis, S.D., for a 10-day motorcycle rally. Attendees gather in bars, restaurants and tattoo parlors. The virus spreads, and there are additional outbreaks in the Midwest.

Aug. 9: The school year is underway, but plans everywhere are in flux. Some schools begin online, some in person. Others try a bit of both but change their minds.

Aug. 13: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden calls for a nationwide mask mandate.

Aug. 17: Kristin Urquiza, whose father died of covid-19, speaks at the Democratic National Convention, furious with Trump and Republican governors who play down the virus. She is one of many turning her grief into action.

Aug. 25: Universities sound alarms as infections soar on campuses and in surrounding communities nationwide.

Sept. 5: Epidemiologists predict a cold-weather virus surge: “There is a wave coming, and it’s not so much whether it’s coming, but how big is it going to be?”

But that warning comes as the summer surge relents. On Sept. 8, the country reports fewer than 25,000 new infections for the first time in three months. The plateau will be short-lived. In another three months, the country will report a daily caseload 10 times that number.

Sept. 10: Trump says the country has “rounded the final turn.” The next day, Fauci contradicts him: “I’m sorry, but I have to disagree with that.”

Sept. 13: More than 200 meat plant workers have died and federal regulators have issued only two small fines to companies flouting safety rules. An earlier Post investigation found companies failing to contain outbreaks and encouraging some employees to continue working on site even while sick.

‘Are you trying to kill us?’

Jitu Brown says it three times: “We are scrambling in our communities for our lives. For our lives. For our lives.”

Brown, an organizer on Chicago’s South Side, has battled structural racism for years. Now, in the middle of the pandemic, he’s watching the same pattern play out.

“When we talk about racism, you don’t have to go an hour away to another site. You can go one train stop to the next train stop,” he says.

In Chicago, covid-19 is hitting predominantly Black neighborhoods harder than anywhere else, and the city’s African Americans represent a highly disproportionate share of cases and deaths.

From coast to coast, the virus is infecting and killing people of color at alarmingly high rates — a fact that escaped officials in the pandemic’s early months, when governments were not tracking and reporting data by race and ethnicity.

But local leaders like Demetrius Young knew. A city commissioner in Albany, Ga., Young feels abandoned by the state and federal governments. “For Black folks, it’s like a setup,” he says. “Are you trying to kill us?”

In Texas, where Latinos are more likely to be hospitalized or die of the virus than White people, Oralia Soto is infected but doesn’t have time to see a doctor. When she finally does, her condition is dire and she dies days later — one of 15 members of her family that the virus sickens or kills.

“It is just too much to handle,” says Brenda Benitez, Soto’s niece. “I feel numb inside. I just pray.”

Sept. 18: Emails surface showing Trump political appointees attempting to silence a top CDC official who issued stark warnings about the coronavirus, contradicting the administration. “She is duplicitous,” one wrote.

Sept. 22: The official U.S. death toll tops 200,000, with no end in sight. Trump says: “It’s a shame.”

Sept. 26: More than 150 people pack into the White House Rose Garden to celebrate the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Few wear masks.

Oct. 2: Trump says he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the virus. Less than 24 hours later, he is flown to a hospital for treatment.

Oct. 5: Trump returns to the White House, playing down the virus that put him in the hospital, telling Americans: “Don’t be afraid of Covid.” He received cutting-edge treatment unavailable to nearly everyone else.

Oct. 9: The Rose Garden ceremony was “a superspreader event,” Fauci says, after at least 11 attendees test positive.

Oct. 19: Trump claims that “people are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots” and says journalists covering the pandemic are “dumb bastards.”

Two days before the presidential election, the United States records more than 100,000 new cases in 24 hours for the first time. The same day, in a blitz of campaign rallies, Trump declares at least four times that the country is “rounding the turn” on the pandemic. But worse is still to come.

Nov. 3: It is Election Day, and many Americans already have cast their ballots in a record-setting, pandemic-spurred wave of early voting.

Nov. 7: Biden wins the presidential election, officially inheriting the public health crisis as the country enters the worst-yet stretch of the pandemic.

‘Like my life depended on it’

Jimmy Wright is the first in line, 5 a.m., with his doughnuts and coffee — and an oxygen tank. It’s time for early voting in Columbus, Ohio, and even though Wright is fresh off a long-haul battle with covid-19, he’s not going to miss the chance to cast his ballot.

“My lungs are damaged, my breathing is damaged,” Wright says. “I’m just glad to be alive.”

Wright is one of about 94 million Americans who vote early in 2020. On Election Day, more than 60 million others cast ballots, the highest percentage to vote in any election since 1900. Many vote by mail. Others, like Wright, risk their lives going to the polls.

In Chattanooga, Tenn., Shajuana Dawson travels there with her kids. The virus has infected all three of them.

“It’s the sickest I’ve seen my children,” Dawson says. “It makes me so angry that people — especially our politicians — aren’t taking it seriously.”

Rosemarie Waldron drops her ballot off with one hand and waves an American flag with the other. The 88-year-old Rutherford, N.J., resident says she wants a government that will control the pandemic, one that “functions for the welfare of all the people instead of one that just looks out for themselves.”

“I voted,” she says, “like my life depended on it.”

Trump refuses to concede and will insist for months that the election was “rigged.” His scores of lawsuits will be rejected, including at the Supreme Court.

Nov. 9: Pfizer-BioNTech reports that its vaccine is more than 90 percent effective at protecting people from the virus. A week later, Moderna reports that its vaccine is nearly 95 percent effective, a sign that the country could have two vaccines by the end of the year.

Nov. 19: The day the death toll reaches 250,000, the CDC urges Americans to avoid travel and gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday, warning that those activities could supercharge virus spread.

Nov. 23: Americans don’t listen. Air travel reaches an all-time pandemic high. Exactly two weeks later, the country is recording an average of 200,000 new infections every day — precisely the surge experts feared.

Dec. 8: Biden announces his plan to address the pandemic during his first 100 days in office, including a federal mask mandate, striking a sharp contrast with the Trump administration.

Dec. 11: The Food and Drug Administration authorizes the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for emergency use, a rare glimmer of hope during one of the pandemic’s darkest hours. Two days later, the first doses of that vaccine are distributed nationwide.

Dec. 14: More than 300,000 have died, with a quickening pace of death and worse still to come.

California emerges as the new U.S. hot spot, posting record-breaking — and unnerving — numbers: more than 50,000 new infections in a single day. More than 100,000 in 48 hours. A soaring positivity rate. If California were a country, it would be among the world leaders in new cases. “Our hospitals are under siege,” Los Angeles County’s public health chief says.

Dec. 18: The FDA authorizes Moderna’s vaccine, a turning point that gives the country its second tool to fight the virus. Two days later, the first vials of the Moderna vaccine ship across the country.

‘A small beacon of hope’

At last, good news. Vaccines.

Mary Ellen Day exhales and laughs after the shot hits her arm. People applaud. She tears up.

Day, a nurse at Temple Health in Philadelphia, is among the first to receive a dose of coronavirus vaccine — marking a desperately anticipated moment. A signal that the end may be beginning.

“Nobody was prepared for this,” Day says. “Nobody’s prepared for a pandemic of this magnitude.”

The early days were terrifying. She was working with covid-19 patients and watching her colleagues fall ill. They weren’t sure how it spread, weren’t sure how to protect themselves.

“Thank God we have the vaccination now,” she says. “It’s just taking steps to getting back to a little bit of normalcy.”

Daisy Solares, a respiratory therapist at the University of Maryland Medical System in Baltimore, was taking care of coronavirus patients early on. Then, the virus came for her father.

“It means a lot,” she says after getting inoculated. “Basically, in honor of him.”

There are still many tall hurdles to clear: producing enough doses, distributing them equitably, persuading people to be vaccinated.

But for now, says Justin Chazhikatt at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles, “This is just a small beacon of hope for the future.”

Dec. 21: Americans once again ignore pleas to stay home for the holidays. Pre-Christmas travel sets a pandemic record, outpacing Thanksgiving.

Dec. 26: A more contagious variant of the coronavirus, first found in the United Kingdom, spreads across the world. The United States hasn’t yet reported a case, and experts suggest it may be undetected because of the the country’s glacial pace of genetic sequencing.

Dec. 29: A growing body of evidence suggests that the virus does not spread much in schools — if the right steps are taken, including mask-wearing, social distancing and ample ventilation.

Dec. 30: The vaccination campaign is off to a chaotic, confused and slower-than-expected start. The country will fall well short of its goal to distribute 20 million doses by the end of the year.

Jan. 6: A Trump-supporting mob storms the U.S. Capitol in a failed insurrection that turns deadly. Many among the riotous crowd would later say they were motivated in part by restrictions put in place to curb virus spread.

Jan. 8: The United States records more than 313,000 new cases in a single day, shattering the previous record and revealing the consequences of holiday travel and gatherings.

The country witnesses the deadliest 48 hours of the pandemic. It sets back-to-back fatality records. At least 8,345 people die, more than doubling the body count of America’s worst calamities: the Battle of Antietam, Pearl Harbor and Sept. 11, 2001.

Jan. 14: Companies scramble to increase vaccine production, and officials estimate that the United States will have enough doses to inoculate 70 percent of the adult population by the end of July.

Jan 15: Researchers estimate that the U.K. variant is 50 percent more contagious. The CDC predicts that it will be dominant in the United States within two months, the most dire warning yet about mutations.

Jan. 19: Covid-19 has now killed more than 400,000 Americans, the milestone coming on the final full day of Trump’s presidency, which will be defined by his mismanagement of the crisis.

Biden opens his inaugural activities with a vigil at the Lincoln Memorial, honoring victims of the pandemic. It’s the country’s first real requiem.

Jan. 20: In his inaugural address, President Biden pauses for a moment of silence to remember the 400,000 felled by the virus. “We must set aside politics and finally face this pandemic as one nation,” he says. He then signs an executive order mandating masks on all federal property. That day, the virus kills 4,440 more Americans. It is a record.

Jan. 22: The Biden administration announces plans to open as many as 100 federally run vaccination sites across the country, dramatically expanding the government’s direct role in combating the pandemic.

Jan. 25: Moderna begins work on a vaccine designed to protect against the variants.

Jan. 26: Biden says he is close to securing an extra 200 million doses of the two approved coronavirus vaccines, increasing U.S. supply by 50 percent.

Jan. 29: Clinical trials show a single-shot coronavirus vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson to be effective at preventing illness, hospitalization and death, raising the prospect that a third option could be close to authorization.

Jan. 31: Essential workers, particularly grocery and food workers, are pushed back in the vaccine line as states prioritize people 65 and older, delaying vaccination for people at the highest risk of exposure.

Feb. 1: The CDC reports that race and ethnicity data was missing for nearly half of all vaccine recipients, repeating a pattern seen in case and death data and stymieing equity efforts.

Feb. 5: Preliminary data show a virus variant that originated in South Africa may be able to reinfect people who have recovered from covid-19. Meanwhile, the U.K. variant spreads rapidly in the United States. The variants mean the coronavirus is here to stay as a perennial — albeit, lesser — threat.

Feb. 10: The CDC’s guidance on mask-wearing changes again, as officials urge Americans to double up to better protect themselves from virus variants.

Feb. 13: A lack of infrastructure — pharmacies, hospitals, transportation — emerges as a major impediment to distributing vaccines in communities of color.

Feb. 14: The catastrophic winter wave finally ebbs. Stressed hospitals are finding reprieve and the number of new daily cases falls below 100,000 for the first time since early November.

Feb. 19: Winter storms batter Texas and much of the country, delaying the distribution of 6 million vaccine doses.

Feb. 23: The U.S. death toll surpasses 500,000, a number greater than the combined American losses in combat from the Civil War, World War I and World War II. “The people we lost were extraordinary,” Biden says at a sunset vigil for the dead.

Feb. 25: The Ad Council launches one of the largest public education efforts in U.S. history, telling the tens of millions of Americans still unsure about vaccination: “It’s Up to You.” More than 50 million Americans have now been vaccinated.

Feb. 26: Experts begin forecasting a summer that looks somewhat normal — as long as vaccinations continue and variants don’t outrace them.

Feb. 27: The FDA authorizes the easier-to-use, single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, and the country gets a third tool against the mutating virus. Within 48 hours, shots begin shipping to sites across the country.

March 2: Biden says the country will have enough vaccine doses for every American adult by the end of May, two months earlier than previously projected. Texas and Mississippi rescind their restrictions, ignoring the warnings of health officials. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) boasts in an all-caps tweet: “Texas is OPEN 100%. EVERYTHING.”

March 4: The Penn Relays, the nation’s oldest and largest track-and-field competition, is canceled for the second year in a row.

March 6: A record number of Americans — nearly 3 million — receive a coronavirus vaccine, and the country is now averaging more than 2 million doses administered every day.

March 8: The CDC issues guidance for vaccinated people: grandparents who have received the shot can finally hug their grandchildren.

March 10: Congress passes a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill, sending it to Biden’s desk for signing. The legislation will deliver $1,400 checks to many Americans, a boost in unemployment payments and a raft of other programs in an attempt to hoist the country out of a deep economic hole.

After a year, more than 50,000 new infections are still being reported each day. But some people are acting as though the pandemic has ended — gathering in crowds, tossing masks into burning trash cans. Meanwhile, experts repeat familiar warnings: Beware another surge. There is hope and there is division, clarity and confusion. America ends one year living with a pandemic, unsure what the next will bring.