Springtime is supposed to be a time of renewal, with people getting out after a cold winter and visiting with neighbors and friends who have been hunkered down for the winter. The winter of coronavirus has lasted a full year, but it is beginning to feel like spring as numbers of new cases have slowed and conversations with neighbors might turn to whether they have received a COVID vaccine. For older folks, many have received at least one shot and are awaiting their second.

It was March 11, 2020 when The Times ran its first COVID-related story about Representative Paul Gosar attending a GOP event at the Fountain Hills Community Center and then immediately going into self-quarantine because he had been exposed to the virus. He said he was not made aware of his exposure until after the Fountain Hills event. The exposure came during an earlier national event.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey made a declaration of a state of emergency on March 11 stating the outbreak presented a health and safety emergency. It was March 13 that President Donald Trump issued a similar emergency declaration nationwide.

Fountain Hills Mayor Ginny Dickey followed up with a local emergency declaration on March 18, following the guidelines of the state and federal declarations and the Federal Center for Disease Control (CDC).

On March 16, President Trump issued “Coronavirus Guidelines for America: 15 days to Slow the Spread,” calling for citizens to avoid social gatherings of more than 10 people and follow the directions of state and local health officials.

In the March 18, 2020 edition of The Times, we wrote, “The world has slowed to a near halt over the past week or two and is not likely to return to normalcy for the next six to eight weeks,” which turned out to be a remarkably optimistic overstatement.

No one really needs or wants to hear a recap of the past year, living through it has left it etched in memory. The deadly impact of the pandemic worldwide is clear in the numbers. Globally, more than 118 million cases have been reported with 2.6 million deaths.

In the United States the number of cases has topped 29 million with over 535,000 deaths.

For Arizona, more than 832,000 cases have been reported with 16,000 deaths.

Maricopa County has reported more than 520,000 cases and 9,400 deaths.

In Fountain Hills there have been 1,555 reported cases with deaths specific to the community not reported.

A year later, people are gravitating to the positive news of the vaccine. In Maricopa County, 565,332 people have received at least one dose of vaccine. There are 324,180 who are fully vaccinated.

In the Fountain Hills 85268 Zip Code, 9,393 have been vaccinated. The information does not reflect whether this is a single dose or fully vaccinated.

All numbers were as of Friday, March 12, 2021.