A powerful image in the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, and compelling, comprehensive coverage of the carnage wrought by COVID-19 in Brazil are recognized for their global impact.
The end of May saw unprecedented news: The coronavirus pandemic continued to spread infection and wreak economic havoc around the globe, while much of the world’s attention pivoted suddenly to protests across the U.S. that spread to Paris, London, Australia and elsewhere after the suffocation death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.
This week’s Best of the Week recognizes AP’s work surrounding each of those mega-stories, with top honors going to Baltimore-based photographer Julio Cortez for his iconic photo of a protester holding an American flag aloft, and to the AP all-formats team in Brazil for continuing coverage of the virus in a nation being ravaged by COVID-19.
Baltimore-based AP photographer Julio Cortez at the scene of a protest in Minneapolis, May 28, 2020.
AP Photo / John Minchillo
Floyd died after a white police officer pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck and back for almost nine minutes, even after the black man stopped moving and pleading for air. The death, captured on video, prompted rage in his city that quickly manifested on the streets.
Late on a Thursday night when destruction and fires raged across the Twin Cities in response, Cortez recognized the symbolism of the U.S. flag when he saw a single protester emerging from the chaos of a police station being burned down. Cortez followed the protester down the street and composed an image silhouetting the man against the inferno of a burning liquor store, with the U.S. flag fluttering upside-down in the wake of his stride.
In a week that saw AP photographers produce a wealth of compelling images from protests and clashes across the nation, Cortez’s photo resonated as an image that defined this moment. Cortez’s frame went viral, appearing in newspapers around the world, including The New York Times and The Guardian. TV newscasts featured it. Twitter used it to lead its “What’s Happening” page. And multiple social media posts depicted it as the photo of the year.
SOS Funeral workers transport by boat a coffin carrying the body of an 86-year-old woman who lived by the Negro River and is a suspected to have died of COVID-19, near Manaus, Brazil, May 14, 2020. The virus has spread upriver from Manaus, creeping into remote riverside towns and territories to infect indigenous tribes.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Plinio dos Santos, 65, who was having difficulty breathing, sits on his bed as emergency worker Wanden Nascimento, left, checks his oxygen saturation level before transferring him to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil, May 20, 2020. Dos Santos was admitted to the hospital, suspected of having COVID-19.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Emergency workers transfer an elderly patient, suspected of having COVID-19, to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil, May 13, 2020. Per capita, Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state, is Brazil's hardest-hit major city amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Eliete das Graças, top right, cries as SOS Funeral workers, wearing protective gear, close the coffin of her father, Edgar Silva, during the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, May 12, 2020. Eliete das Graças said her father had Alzheimer’s and died at home after two days of fever and difficulty breathing.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
SOS Funeral workers move a coffin holding the body of an 86-year-old woman who lived by the Negro River and who is suspected of dying of COVID-19, near Manaus, Brazil, May 14, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Graves for people who have died in the past month fill a new section of the Nossa Senhora Aparecida Cemetery during the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, May 11, 2020. Indigenous tribes in the North Region of Brazil tried for weeks to seal their territory from the virus, pleading for donations while awaiting government delivery of food assistance so they could remain isolated. It didn’t come for many, indigenous advocates say.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Pedro dos Santos, the leader of a community named Park of Indigenous Nations, poses in Manaus, Brazil, May 10, 2020. Manaus’ lack of treatment for the new coronavirus prompted dos Santos to drink tea made of chicory root, garlic and lime to combat a high fever that lasted 10 days.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
People gather outside a bar in Manaus, Brazil, May 24, 2020, during the new coronavirus pandemic. Although health experts warned that the pandemic was far from over in Manaus and across the country, national polls showed adherence to lockdowns and quarantines falling, and a growing percentage of Brazilians neglecting local leaders’ safety recommendations.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
The riverside Educandos neighborhood is seen from above in Manaus, Brazil, May 16, 2020. Manaus is Brazil’s seventh largest city and the hardest hit per capita by COVID-19.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
A boy flies a kite by the riverside in Manaus, Brazil, May 24, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Men gather at a fish market in Manaus, Brazil, May 22, 2020. Although health experts warn that the COVID-19 pandemic was far from over in Brazil, national polls showed adherence to lockdowns and quarantines falling.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Emergency workers transfer by boat a 10-year-old suspected COVID-19 patient from a riverside community to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil, May 22, 2020. The youth had fever and other symptoms for three days and had not yet been tested for the new coronavirus.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Nurse Janete Vieira, center, and Doctor Daniel Siqueira monitor COVID-19 patients being transferred by air from Santo Antônio do Içá to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil, May 19, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Emergency workers transfer a COVID-19 patient to a hospital in Manaus, Brazil, May 15, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
An elderly COVID-19 patient is treated inside a non-invasive ventilation system at the municipal field hospital Gilberto Novaes in Manaus, Brazil, May 18, 2020. The field hospital, set up with nearly 150 beds inside a school, was operating near its limit treating patients from both the capital and remote Amazon areas.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
COVID-19 patients are treated inside non-invasive ventilation systems named “Vanessa Capsules” at the municipal field hospital Gilberto Novaes in Manaus, Brazil, May 18, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
An ambulance doctor checks for the pulse of an elderly man who had just died at his home during the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, May 21, 2020. Per capita, Manaus is Brazil's major city hardest hit by COVID-19.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Graves of those who passed away since early April fill a new section of the Nossa Senhora Aparecida public cemetery amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, May 16, 2020. The area was opened last month to cope with a sudden surge in deaths in the city, though most of the deceased were not tested for COVID-19.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
The sons of 42-year-old Leivane Bibiano help an SOS Funeral worker remove their mother's body during the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, May 12, 2020. According to Bibiano’s relatives, she had pre-existing health conditions and died at home after having fever and cough for two weeks.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
An SOS Funeral worker wearing protective gear amid the new coronavirus pandemic prepares to remove the body of Eldon Cascais in Manaus, Brazil, May 9, 2020. According to relatives, Cascais had lung cancer and died at home after suffering for a week with shortness of breath, cough and fatigue.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Relatives help an SOS Funeral worker, far right, remove the body of Eldon Cascais from his home in Manaus, Brazil, May 9, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Relatives mourn over the body of Luis da Silva, 82, who had pre-existing health conditions and died at home after suffering from shortness of breath in Manaus, Brazil, May 10, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Painted wooden crosses lay on the roadside of a newly opened section of the Nossa Senhora Aparecida Cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, May 16, 2020.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Crosses mark the graves of those who have passed away since early April, filling a new section of the Nossa Senhora Aparecida public cemetery amid the new coronavirus pandemic in Manaus, Brazil, May 16, 2020. The new area was opened last month to cope with a sudden surge in deaths in the city, though most of the deceased were not tested for COVID-19.
AP Photo / Felipe Dana
Brazil, meanwhile, has emerged as the world’s newest COVID-19 epicenter, presenting no shortage of challenges: Populist President Jair Bolsonaro has resisted local quarantines, disproportionally impacting remote villages. The AP team in Brazil is this week’s second winner for its dramatic and wide-ranging coverage, from major cities to remote towns of the vast Amazon rainforest.
It was truly a team effort. Honored are news director David Biller, senior producer Yesica Fisch, chief photographer Silvia Izquierdo, video journalists Renata Brito, Tatiana Pollastri, Mario Lobão, and Lucas Dumphreys, photographers Felipe Dana, Andre Penner, and Eraldo Peres, reporter Mauricio Savarese, and stringers Leo Correa for photo, Diarlei Rodrigues for video, and Diane Jeantet and Marcelo de Sousa for text.
While local media struggled to gain access to medical facilities in Rio de Janeiro state, AP’s journalists managed to win entry to three of them, showing ill-equipped doctors in increasingly overrun hospitals struggling to attend to patients.
Yara Loureiro, right, speaks with her 90-year-old mother, Lourdes Giannini, May 26, 2020, through a glass window at the Premier Hospital in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where her mother is a patient after suffering a stroke. The hospital did not have any cases of COVID-19, but closed visits to patients to prevent contagion of the coronavirus.
AP Photo / Andre Penner
Dr. Willie Baracho, right, checks Mario de Santos, suspected of suffering from COVID-19, at his home in the slum of Vila Vintem in Rio de Janeiro, May 19, 2020.
AP Photo / Silvia Izquierdo
A patient, center, who died from the new coronavirus, lies on a table between other COVID-19 patients in a room at the Salgado Filho Municipal Hospital in Rio de Janeiro, May 24, 2020.
AP Photo / Leo Correa
A nurse talks to a COVID-19 patient at the Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara Municipal Hospital, which exclusively treats new coronavirus cases, in Marica, Brazil, May 21, 2020.
AP Photo / Leo Correa
COVID-19 patient Osmarino Lima rests in a room at the Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara Minicipal Hospital in Marica, Brazil, May 21, 2020. “This is the happiest day of my life,” said the 67-year-old retiree when she was discharged from the hospital, which treats only patients infected by the new coronavirus.
AP Photo / Leo Correa
Medical workers move new coronavirus patient Rosane Pacheco for treatment at the Dr. Ernesto Che Guevara Municipal Hospital in Marica, Brazil, May 21, 2020.
AP Photo / Leo Correa
At the Vila Formosa Cemetery in Sao Paulo, May 28, 2020, relatives mourn as they watch cemetery workers shovel dirt over the coffin of 73-year-old Iziquiel Sampaio de Souza, who died of COVID-19.
AP Photo / Andre Penner
Newly dug, empty graves fill the Vila Formosa Cemetery where many COVID-19 victims are buried in Sao Paulo, May 28, 2020.
AP Photo / Andre Penner
Cemetery workers in protective clothing bury a COVID-19 victim at the Vila Formosa Cemetery in Sao Paulo, May 28, 2020.
AP Photo / Andre Penner
At the Vila Formosa Cemetery in Sao Paulo, May 28, 2020. cemetery workers in protective clothing lower the coffin of 58-year-old Paulo Cesar dos Santos, who died of COVID-19.
AP Photo / Andre Penner
A numbered cross marks an empty grave at the Caju Cemetery where many COVID-19 victims are being buried in Rio de Janeiro, May 20, 2020.
AP Photo / Silvia Izquierdo
Stranded Colombians sleep inside the Sao Paulo international airport in Guarulhos, Brazil, May 27, 2020, as flights were severely limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hundreds of people, including tourists and migrants who lost their jobs, were living inside the airport, waiting for humanitarian flights to leave Brazil.
AP Photo / Andre Penner
Wearing masks to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, Thiago do Nascimento, right, and Keilla de Almeida kiss during their drive-thru wedding at the registry office in the neighborhood of Santa Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, May 28, 2020. Couples started turning to this unconventional union by a notary in Santa Cruz after the coronavirus started battering Brazil.
AP Photo / Silvia Izquierdo
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, supporters of Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro wear face masks decorated with his image as the president departed his official residence, Alvorada palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, May 25, 2020.
AP Photo / Eraldo Peres
Wearing masks against the coronavirus pandemic, supporters pray for Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, second from left, as he leaves his official residence, Alvorada palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, May 25, 2020. Bolsonaro has repeatedly called COVID-19 a “little flu,” and argued that concern over the virus is overblown.
AP Photo / Eraldo Peres
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro wears a mask amid the new coronavirus pandemic while speaking to supporters as he leaves his official residence, Alvorada palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, May 26, 2020.
AP Photo / Eraldo Peres
A woman holds a sign that reads in Portuguese “Dying from a shot or dying from a virus. Are those the options for the favela?” during a protest against crimes committed by the police against black people in the favelas, outside Rio de Janeiro’s state government, May 31, 2020. The protest, called “Black lives matter, was interrupted when police used tear gas to disperse people. “I can't breathe,” said some of the demonstrators, alluding to the George Floyd’s death at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
AP Photo / Silvia Izquierdo
As families torn apart by COVID-19 gathered at cemeteries in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Manaus, in the Amazon, they shared their pain with AP journalists. In a series of deeply researched and sensitively told stories, the team profiled the vulnerable – the poor in favelas, desperate informal-sector workers and the homeless. And it captured the virus’ spread into the Amazon, in Manaus where denial of the disease has held strong even in the face of mass death, producing strong text, photo and video coverage.
For extraordinary work that excelled on the world’s two biggest stories at the end of May, Cortez and the Brazil all-formats reporting team earn AP’s Best of the Week.
