The timeline below shows how often imagery of beaches has been depicted on CNN in conjunction with “virus” or “covid” or “distancing” or “coronavirus” in the onscreen text since the start of the data on Jan. 25 of this year. Beach imagery first begins appearing around Mar. 19, accelerating a month later on Apr. 18, with large peaks on Memorial Day and July 4th weekends. Interestingly, the July 4th weekend resulted in a smaller peak than Memorial Day as the idea of crowd-filled beaches has become more normalized.