The pandemic has claimed a staggering 1.76 million lives worldwide, including more than 2,259 and counting in Clark County.
Statewide, more than 2,900 have perished, including a state-high 57 Nevadans dying from the virus on Dec. 16.
“That’s another 57 Nevadans who will be missed by loved ones this holiday season,” Gov. Steve Sisolak posted in a Twitter post.
The health crisis doesn’t discriminate, impacting residents in all corners of the state and from all backgrounds.
We remember all of those who died. Here are some of their stories:
From left, Clark County Commission candidate William McCurdy, II, his mother Billie McCurdy, friend Titus Haynes, father William McCurdy, I, and mentor Lois Reed sit down for lunch at Gritz Cafe in Las Vegas on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2020.
NLV woman made larger-than-life impact on community
Lois Reed’s North Las Vegas home was the site of a voter registration drive, the kitchen for her exclusive, subscription-only tamales business and where she saw her family every day. It is where her spirit will live forever, after COVID-19 took her suddenly in November.
“If you didn’t have the opportunity to meet her, you truly missed out,” said her daughter Kharli Payne. “It’s almost like never seeing Beyonce or never hearing Prince’s music.”
That’s because Reed never sat still, never cut corners and always spoke her truth. She dispensed tough love but never in a way that made you feel bad after getting it.
Between her time as a cook at the former Landmark hotel and several years as an intake worker for the state’s welfare department, a job that she retired from around 2004, Reed served four years in Nevada prison for drug possession with intent to sell.
She worked as a self-advocate to reduce her sentence and then to restore rights and normalcy for all ex-felons. She even had the ear of Nevada icon Sen. Harry Reid, Payne said.
The Nevada Legislature approved a bill last year to restore ex-felons’ voting rights, allowing Reed to vote this year for the first time since 1988. On Oct. 3, she paid it forward when she set up well-spaced tables in her front yard and helped about 25 people register.
“I definitely think her fight and her voice and her opinions allowed me to be outspoken,” Payne said. “I definitely believe it made me stronger as a person. It made me independent as a person, and to kind of carry that on and instill those same qualities in my girls.”
Reed started feeling sick around Nov. 12, not long before her 63rd birthday. She spent a day in the hospital, was given medicine and told to go home and rest, but within a couple of days, she had to return.
Payne felt compelled to call her mother over video chat after midnight on Nov. 29. She told her she loved her. They hung up at around 1 a.m., and at 1:47, a nurse called to say Reed had gone into respiratory arrest. She had died.
“If you met my mom one time or if you had known her for years you were truly, truly blessed,” Payne said. “You had truly met an amazing force of nature. Smart, intelligent, well-spoken, outspoken. Witty, funny, clever. She was just so many things.”
Reed crafted the recipes that fueled the tamales “club” she ran for 16 years, accessed after paying an upfront fee. Tamales are notoriously labor-intensive, but she was particular. Payne and sometimes her older daughter helped assemble the finished product but the exact preparation of the beef, turkey and, if you were lucky, chicken tamales, stayed in Reed’s head. They were as good as her potato salad.
Clark County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly knew the woman he referred to as “Ms. Lolo” not only as one of his community liaisons but as a frequent caller on his radio show on KCEP 88.1.
Weekly offered his condolences on behalf of the county at the commission’s Dec. 1 meeting. He urged people to wear masks, socially distance, and wash their hands to “do what we can to help save each other.”
“It’s real, man,” he said, clearly taken aback by Reed’s death. “It hit home for so many of us who are very close to Lois Reed.”
— Hillary Davis
Vincent De Jesus vignette with his mother, Madeleine De Jesus.
Las Vegas nurse cared for others until the end
Vincent De Jesus devoted his life to caring for others, whether it was his mother or his patients at Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, where he worked as a registered nurse.
His selfless nature was on display until the very end of his life.
After contracting COVID-19, one of his biggest concerns was the health of his mother.
“He was on his deathbed terrified that he gave my mom COVID, which he didn’t,” his sister Crystal Alvarado said.
De Jesus died on Aug. 15 at the same hospital where he helped so many others after battling the coronavirus since late July. He was 39.
Alvarado said she wants people to remember her brother’s kindness.
“He didn’t care who you were, what you did, what you look like, what your political party was,” she said. “He just wanted to make sure you were healthy and happy. He never judged you. He could meet you for the first time and treat you like his best friend, and I think we as a country have forgotten that.”
De Jesus became his mother’s primary caretaker after his father died in 2010.
When he was working during the pandemic, he’d get home and wash his clothes and shower immediately, his sister said. He would stay on a different floor of the house he shared with his mom so as not to potentially expose her to the virus.
“He wanted to make sure she never got it,” Alvarado said.
She said she tries to emulate his loving spirit. In situations now, she said she asks herself, “What would Vincent do?”
“He was that person that didn’t see anything but a human that he wanted to care for,” she said.
— John Sadler
Ronaldo Cesa, the well-liked cafeteria manager at Ronnow Elementary School, died of COVID-19 on April 2, 2020. He is shown celebrating his March 20 birthday with friend and colleague Mai Macapagal-Malimban.
School keeps memory alive of cafeteria worker lost to COVID-19
When students at C.C. Ronnow Elementary School lined up for lunch, they got a lot more than a tray of chicken tenders or a cheeseburger and fruit cup.
The best part of lunch may have been the big smile and hug they got from longtime cafeteria manager.
Cesa, who knew most every one of the 700-plus students by name, reveled in being able to brighten a child’s day.
Tragically, Cesa contracted COVID-19 and succumbed to the disease on April 2, one of more than 2,500 people in Nevada lost to the pandemic. He had just turned 53.
“None of us got a chance to see him or say goodbye,” his friend Mai Macapagal-Malimban said.
Cesa, who worked for a decade at Ronnow and had recently been promoted to train other Clark County School District cafeteria managers, won’t quickly be forgotten at the school.
Principal Michelee Quiroz Cruz-Crawford had the words “The Ronaldo Cesa Cafeteria” painted in the lunchroom, along with a large mural of Cesa’s face on the wall.
“I wanted some way to memorialize him and the kids to see him and go through the grieving process,” Cruz-Crawford said.
After schools shut down in mid-March because of the pandemic, Cesa worked at Desert Pines High School passing out meals to needy students.
“It is always fulfilling we can provide smile in children’s faces which give us sense of belonging and made me feel more whole as a person,” Cesa wrote on his birthday, March 20, in a Facebook post.
— Sara MacNeil
Nurse lost to coronavirus was devoted to his wife and career
When Lydia Espinosa thinks about her husband, Freddy, she likes to remember his loving nature.
“He was always telling me how much he loves me, always telling me how pretty I was,” she said. “I’d say, ‘But I’m getting old,’ and he’d say, ‘I don’t care, you’re still pretty.’ He was always showing me his love.”
Her husband, a nurse practitioner, died on Dec. 10 after battling COVID-19 for weeks. He was 59.
The couple were married for 35 years. New Year’s Eve is their anniversary.
Freddy Espinosa worked in the nursing field for 20 years and was always studying and learning, his wife said.
“That was his passion,” she said.
He worked with COVID patients and recounted heartbreaking stories of people dying alone, unable to see their families.
Lydia said her husband did everything he could to prevent bringing the virus home, but she ended up getting it, too. She recovered after a five-day hospital stay.
Outside of work, Freddy’s other passion was the movies, his wife said.
“When he got the week off, he was really happy because he was going to get to go to the movies the next day,” she said.
When he couldn’t go to the theater, he’d watch action movies at home. "Black Panther" and "Batman" were among his favorites, she said.
— John Sadler
Loving father contracted COVID after undergoing surgery
Rebecca Andrews ached to hold her father’s hand when he died at a Las Vegas-area hospital in August from coronavirus. Instead, she had to say goodbye via video chat.
Alan Andrews, who died from COVID-19 at age 77, is shown with his daughter Rebecca in this family photo.
Alan Andrews died at age 77.
“It makes you realize what a privilege it is just to be able to hold someone you love’s hand,” Rebecca Andrews said.
Alan tripped and broke his femur in July and required surgery if he wanted to walk again, his daughter said. She said he contracted the virus at a rehab center, where, according to the ProPublica’s database of nursing home deficiency, 23 of the 37 residents had the virus. Two died.
Andrews had five adult children. He loved Michigan football, taking his dogs to the park and watching western movies.
Rebecca Andrews says she is avoiding the “what if” questions. What if her dad never tripped? What if he never got surgery?
Rather, she’s focusing on the good memories, like when he used to sing in the morning to his children to wake them up.
“I was so lucky to have a dad that was so hard to say goodbye to,” she said.
— Sara MacNeil
Bruce Williamson, pictured here performing with friend Serena Henry, was a local singer and entertainer who was also a member of The Temptations. He died of COVID-19. (Courtesy Serena Henry)
Temptations singer Bruce Williamson moved people with his music
Before he sang lead for The Temptations or entertained on the Strip, Bruce Williamson Jr. gave all glory to God as a 4-year-old soloist in the Magnolia Missionary Baptist Church youth choir.
“That boy opened up his voice and his mother stood up and froze,” said his mother, Frances M. Robinson, so obviously proud 45 years later. “He blew. Baby, he blew.”
Williamson moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas at age 12 and grew up to be a professional singer with an uncanny range. He could cover the velvety rumble of Barry White and the sugary falsetto of Prince. He lent his voice to several local bands and choirs at the same time. From 2006 to 2015 he sang some of the most enduring songs in the American soul canon as the lead singer of The Temptations before departing to continue his solo career.
This summer, not far out from gallbladder surgery, he contracted COVID-19 and fought until his heart was too damaged. He died Sept. 6 at age 49.
Williamson was sharply dressed even as an infant, spoke with the sagacity and elocution of an old professor even as a boy, and called his mother “mommy” even as a grown man with three adult sons and several young grandchildren.
Michelle Johnson met Williamson more than 20 years ago through a lounge act they sang in at the Venetian, and recruited him as the first to join her Desert Angels professional gospel choir. He missed very few choir gigs.
“He was so talented that if a client saw any promotional video with him in it and then I didn't show up with him, there would be an issue,” she said.
Johnson said he never grew cynical with his industry and was always developing as an artist. He was her first call for everything professionally and personally.
Serena Henry, also a professional singer, was his best friend for 20 years. She said he bloomed where he was planted because of his deep faith.
“I think Bruce's mantra was, he was happy where God had him, wherever that was, whether it was singing with The Temptations or doing corporate gigs,” she said.
He didn't need a microphone to fill a room but could soften his tone to join her on her favorite duet with him, “Unforgettable.”
Tall, large of frame and confident, he was a dominating but not intimidating presence.
“He just gave you this bear hug, almost as if this might be the last time he hugged you,” Henry said. “I always loved that he expressed his love outwardly in that way.”
Johnson said his voice was loud but controlled, emotive, and could grab you and not let go.
“That’s how I would describe his voice and his personality,” she said.
— Hillary Davis