A 64-year-old woman weeps, hugging her husband as he lay dying in the Covid-19 unit of a California hospital. A crowded refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, engulfed in flames, disgorges a string of migrants fleeing this hell on Earth. Rain-swept protesters, enraged by the death of George Floyd in police custody, rail against the system and the heavens.
This is the world that Associated Press photographers captured in 2020, a world beset by every sort of catastrophe - natural and unnatural disaster, violent and non-violent conflict. And, in every corner of that world, the coronavirus.
Migrants flee from the second fire in two days at the overcrowded Moria refugee camp on the island of Lesbos, Greece, on September 9, 2020. Photo / AP
Josefa Ribas, 86, who is bedridden and suffers from dementia, is attended to by nurse Laura Valdes during a home care visit in Barcelona, Spain, on April 7, 2020. Photo / AP
Protesters storm the San Francisco de Borja church, which belongs to the Carabineros, Chile's national police force, in Santiago, Chile, on October 18, 2020. Photo / AP
Swarms of desert locusts fly into the air from crops in Katitika village in Kenya's Kitui county on January 24, 2020. Photo / AP
Sneakers and a Los Angeles Lakers jersey with the number 8 worn by NBA star Kobe Bryant hang at a memorial for Bryant in Los Angeles on February 2, 2020. Photo / AP
Rescue workers and local residents search for survivors in the wreckage of a plane that crashed with nearly 100 people onboard in a residential area of Karachi, Pakistan, on May 22, 2020. Photo / AP
People stand in their balconies during a nationwide confinement to counter the coronavirus in Barcelona, Spain on March 29, 2020. Photo / AP
South African National Defence Forces patrol Johannesburg on March 28, 2020, enforcing a strict lockdown in an effort to control the spread of the coronavirus. Photo / AP
Arif Mirbaghi plays a double bass in his backyard during mandatory self-isolation to prevent the spread of the coronavirus in Tehran, Iran, on April 5, 2020. Photo / AP
A homeless person sits in a wheelchair during rainy weather on Sunset Boulevard in the Echo Park neighbourhood of Los Angeles on April 6, 2020. Photo / AP
Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein leaves court in New York on January 10, 2020, after attending jury selection for his sexual assault trial. Photo / AP
After 52 days in the hospital's ICU due to the coronavirus, Francisco Espana was allowed by his doctors to spend almost ten minutes at the Barcelona seaside on September 4, 2020. Photo / AP
Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island in the Bronx borough of New York on April 9, 2020. Photo / AP
President Donald Trump, along with White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr Deborah Birx, holds a press conference on April 13, 2020. Photo / AP
Protesters rally against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer's orders to keep people at home and businesses locked during the coronavirus outbreak on April 15, 2020. Photo / AP
Empty lanes on the highway to Los Angeles on April 26, 2020, as California remains on lockdown to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. Photo / AP
A worker cleans a window as a nurse tends to a patient inside the intensive care unit for people infected with the coronavirus at a hospital in Lima, Peru, on April 17, 2020. Photo / AP
A health worker tends to her colleague, who fainted due to exhaustion at a Covid-19 testing camp in New Delhi, India on April 27, 2020. Photo / AP
Women clerics wearing protective clothing arrive at a cemetery to prepare the body of a person who died from Covid-19 in Ghaemshahr, Iran, on April 30, 2020. Photo / AP
An elderly woman suffering from Covid-19 breathes with the help of an oxygen mask in a hospital in Pochaiv, Ukraine, on May 1, 2020. Photo / AP
The body of Ricardo Noriega, 77, lies on the floor of his living room in Lima, Peru, on May 4, 2020, after he died of Covid-19. Photo / AP
Moroccans and Bangladeshis wait on an overcrowded wooden boat for aid workers from the Spanish search and rescue group Open Arms off the Libyan coast on January 10, 2020. Photo / AP
A police officer holds a pistol during clashes with protesters near a barricade of burning tires in the Kariobangi slum of Nairobi, Kenya, on May 8, 2020. Photo / AP
A worker from the city's forensic department in Quito, Ecuador, sprays disinfectant over the body of a woman who died on the street on May 14, 2020. Photo / AP
Relatives pour beer into the tomb of Victor Gaspar, who died of Covid-19, during his burial at the Nueva Esperanza cemetery on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, on May 28, 2020. Photo / AP
A protester carries a US flag upside down as he walks past a burning building in Minneapolis on May 28, 2020, during a protest over the death of George Floyd. Photo / AP
People demonstrate outside a burning Arby's fast food restaurant on May 29, 2020, in Minneapolis during a protest over the killing of George Floyd. Photo / AP
Motorists are ordered to the ground from their vehicle by police on May 31, 2020, during a protest in Minneapolis over the killing of George Floyd. Photo / AP
A protester and a police officer shake hands in the middle of a standoff during a rally in New York on June 2, 2020, calling for justice over the killing of George Floyd. Photo / AP
President Donald Trump, returning from a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, walks across the South Lawn of the White House. Photo / AP
Father Vasily Gelevan, a Russian Orthodox priest, blesses Lyudmila Polyak, 86, who is believed to be suffering from Covid-19, at her apartment in Moscow. Photo / AP
Agustina Canamero, 81, and Pascual Perez, 84, hug and kiss through a plastic film screen to avoid contracting the coronavirus at a nursing home in Barcelona, Spain, on June 22, 2020. Photo / AP
Peruvian migrant Jose Collantes cries as cemetery workers bury his wife Silvia Cano, who he says died of Covid-19, at a Catholic cemetery in Santiago, Chile, on July 3, 2020. Photo / AP
Athletic Club and Real Madrid play during their Spanish La Liga soccer match an empty San Manes stadium in Bilbao, Spain, on July 5, 2020. Photo / AP
Tents illuminated at Rot Fai Market in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 19, 2020, as the government continues to ease restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Photo / AP
Thomas Henney, left, and Charles Chavira watch a plume of smoke spread over Healdsburg, California, as wildfires burn nearby on August 20, 2020. Photo / AP
Bill Nichols, 84, works to save the home he has lived in for 77 years as a wildfire tears through Vacaville, California, on August 19, 2020. Photo / AP
Embers light up a hillside behind the Bidwell Bar Bridge on September 9, 2020, as the Bear Fire burns in Oroville, California. Photo / AP
Hoda Kinno, 11, is evacuated by her uncle Mustafa on August 4, 2020, shortly after a massive explosion at the port in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo / AP
Injured people are evacuated shortly after a massive explosion at the port in Beirut, Lebanon, on August 4, 2020. Photo / AP
Black smoke rises from a warehouse fire at the Port of Beirut, Lebanon, on September 10. 2020, triggering panic among residents traumatised by the massive explosion the month before. Photo / AP
Monserrat Medina Zentella attends school via the internet from her home in Mexico City on August 24, 2020, amid the coronavirus pandemic. Photo / AP
White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway prepares to tape her speech for the third day of the Republican National Convention in Washington on August 26, 2020. Photo / AP
Blanca Ortiz, 84, celebrates after learning that she will be dismissed from a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on August 13, 2020, several weeks after being admitted with Covid-19. Photo / AP
Two women kiss under an old Belarusian national flag as opposition supporters gather near the Independence Palace in Minsk, Belarus, on August 30, 2020. Photo / AP
Mary Faye Cochran, 86, sings "You Are My Sunshine" over the phone to her son Stacey Smith through a window on Mother's Day, May 10, 2020. Photo / AP
Cemetery workers carry the coffin of a person who died of Covid-19 for burial at the Martires 19 de Julio cemetery in Comas, on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, on July 8, 2020. Photo / AP
Plainclothes police officers detain demonstrators in Jakarta, Indonesia, on October 8, 2020, during a protest against a new law they say will cripple labour rights and harm the environment. Photo / AP
The father of 7-year-old Aysu Isgandarova, who died during shelling by Armenian forces in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, mourns in Garayusifli, Azerbaijan, on October 28, 2020. Photo / AP
A family drives a truck loaded with a small house along a highway as they leave their home village in the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh on November 18, 2020. Photo / AP
Wearing masks and plastic gloves to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, girls raise their hands during class in Havana, Cuba, on Monday, November 2, 2020. Photo / AP
People shoot off fireworks in Washington's Black Lives Matter Plaza to celebrating Joe Biden's win over Donald Trump to become the 46th President of the United States on November 7, 2020. Photo / AP
