Three years have passed since, on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization dubbed COVID-19 as a global pandemic. That day Hawaii’s Council on Revenues projected a loss of $225 million to the state budget for the next year.

That sounds pretty small-ball in hindsight, once the University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization calculated a $7 billion loss to the accommodations and food-services sector from 2020 to the end of this year.

It’s one of those anniversaries to observe rather than celebrate.