WORCESTER, Mass. - Friday marks the third anniversary of the first case of COVID-19 being confirmed in the United States.

The sample was taken days earlier in Washington state, and less than a month after experts first started tracking the virus. Since January 2020, the CDC confirmed nearly 102 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly 1.1 million deaths.

Worcester medical director Dr. Michael Hirsh said three years later, there are now multiple ways to treat and fight the virus, and the city will always remember the people who lost their lives.

"Like City Manager [Ed] Augustus used to say, we were building the plane while we were flying it," Hirsh said. "We didn't really know all of the twists and turns that COVID would take, but in the end, I think we came out reasonably okay. There are over 600 families in Worcester who are missing loved ones, and that's hard to think about, but I think it could have been a lot worse without the kind of community-wide effort we put in."

Hirsh said COVID-19 cases just recently started coming down again in the city. There were 178 cases this week compared to 330 two weeks ago.