ANKENY, Iowa — While the omicron surge may be winding down, COVID isn't done with Iowa yet. A memorial to honor the lives lost to the virus expanded Tuesday, adding 1,200 paper cranes to represent additional victims.
The "Folding Cranes, Enfolding Community" art installation at DMACC's Ankeny Campus is beautiful, but a grim reminder of the lives lost to the pandemic in Iowa. Artist Pam Douglas is behind the project.
"When someone dies, it's not just one person, it's a whole family, it's maybe all your friends in that community that are feeling this," Douglas said. "So I wanted to support that and bring attention to that and help focus on what maybe we should be doing for one another."
The exhibit was first set up in December. In the eight weeks since then, another 1,200 Iowans have died from COVID, bringing the state's total to 8,657.
"When people come in here, they look at it, and they talk about, 'Oh, it's so pretty, but it's so sad,'" Douglas said.
Now, the state is winding down its COVID response. When Iowa's public health disaster emergency proclamation expires on Feb. 15, the state's COVID data dashboard will be decommissioned, though the Iowa Department of Public Health will still publish weekly updates.
The grief that many families are experiencing, however, won't go away.
"Someone's grieving, take that little extra effort, that little Iowa nice that we're talking about, and reach out to them and support them and help them through this process," Douglas said. "Don't let them be alone, feel alone, feel like they're the only one suffering."
Douglas told Local 5 that for the near future, she's committed to keeping the exhibit updated with additional cranes for each COVID death.
WATCH | From the frontlines: An inside look at a Des Moines hospital as it handles the recent COVID surge