During late summer Wayne Bright toiled day and night burying victims of the deadly Covid-19 wave sweeping across the US, so much so that his funeral home ran out of caskets.
But in recent weeks the number of people dying of the virus in his tight-knit community in Tampa, Florida, has fallen together with a nationwide dip in mortality rates. This has raised hopes among those on the frontline of the crisis that the US may finally be charting a course out of a pandemic which has claimed 710,000 American lives so far.
“If we continue along the path that we are following now then I believe the worst may be over,” said Bright, who buried 55 people last month, including some close friends.