Pinwheels, hearts displayed outside Missouri hospital to mark 1 year since 1st COVID-19 patient

ST. LOUIS - A hospital in Missouri displayed thousands of blue pinwheels to mark one year since admitting their first COVID-19 patient.

Missouri Baptist Medical Center shared video of the memorial on Facebook and said it paid tribute to the 1,800 COVID-19 patients it had cared for since March 19, 2020.

In the footage, pinwheels can be seen spinning in the wind with a sign in the background which reads:

"With compassion and empathy, we remember all who have recovered and gone home and those who have passed from COVID-19."

Freeze frame of Missouri Baptist Medical Center’s display of blue pinwheels and white hearts to mark one year since admitting its first COVID-19 patient.

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Approximately 1,550 blue pinwheels represent the patients who recovered from the virus, according to the post, and 270 white hearts represent the lives lost at the hospital to COVID-19.

It’s been a little more than one year since the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a pandemic. Since then, people from all over the world have endured immense hardships. Businesses were shut down, students had to resort to online learning and family and friends had to be separated for months.

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So far, the virus has killed more than 2.7 million people worldwide, with the United States at the top of the death toll list with over 543,000 deaths as of March 23, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University.

As the world races to vaccinate as many people as possible, new mutated variants of the novel coronavirus and premature reopenings threaten the progress made against fighting the deadly virus, according to health experts.

President Joe Biden pledged on March 12 to make all adults eligible for vaccines by May 1 and raised the possibility of beginning to "mark our independence from this virus" by the Fourth of July. He offered Americans fresh hope and appealed anew for their help.

"We are bound together by the loss and the pain of the days that have gone by," he said. "We are also bound together by the hope and the possibilities in the days in front of us."

The Associated Press and Storyful contributed to this story.