This condition, a psychiatric state called prolonged grief disorder, typically lasts for many months after a loss—one year in the U.S. or six months per international criteria. The condition is much worse than normal grieving, says Katherine Shear, a psychiatrist at the Columbia University School of Social Work and founder of the Center for Complicated Grief. And the isolation surrounding so many pandemic deaths likely makes people more vulnerable to it. “There are so many aspects of the pandemic that are going to be risk factors for people having a hard time adapting to these losses,” Shear says. The number of people with prolonged grief in the near future and beyond could be substantial. A July 2020 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA estimated that each U.S. COVID death leaves, on average, approximately nine close relatives bereaved. If 5 to 10 percent of the bereaved group develops this disorder—which is the standard rate under normal circumstances—this could put the prevalence of prolonged grief at an additional quarter of a million to half a million cases in the coming year. Other data hint the toll could be much higher. A March 2021 poll from the Associated Press–NORC (AP-NORC) Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 20 percent of people surveyed in the U.S. had lost a relative or close friend to COVID. That means a potential bereaved population of about 65 million, and it could push numbers of new prolonged grief cases into the millions.