Memo - How we got here: COVID-19 in the U.S.

On January 21, 2020, the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the United States. Since then, it has been a year of devastation, death, economic turmoil, while life as we know it has been upended in America.

The U.S. remains the global leader in COVID-19 cases. The economy took a nosedive and as cases continue to spread, the recovery has slowed. Tens of millions remain without jobs and tragically, over 400,000 Americans lost their lives under President Trump's watch.

But things perhaps could have played out differently if not for key missteps and weeks of downplaying the risk of the pandemic by the Trump administration, and months of missed opportunities to get the virus under control. In the memo below, our team has kept an updated timeline of events that led to this outbreak that continues to plague our country.