President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris marked a moment of silence as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus reached the grim milestone of 500,000 on Monday.
“Today, we mark a truly grim, heartbreaking milestone: 500,071 dead. That’s more Americans who have died in one year in this pandemic than in World War One, World War Two, and the Vietnam War combined. That’s more lives lost to this virus than any other nation on Earth,” Biden said sharing with Americans the sorrow of lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The United States has been the most affected country since the coronvairus breakout in December 2019, both in terms of infections and deaths. Biden is working with Congress for a stimulus package and has also set an ambitious target to vaccinate Americans in the first 100 days of his term.
Nearly one year after the United States began experiencing deaths from the deadly virus, Biden, who has lived through the loss of close family members including his son, said:
“For the loved ones left behind, I know all too well — I know what it’s like to not be there when it happens. I know what it’s like when you are there, holding their hands. There’s a look in your eye, and they slip away. That black hole in your chest, you feel like you’re being sucked into it. The survivor’s remorse. The anger. The questions of faith in your soul.”
He paid tribute to their memory with a candlelight vigil at the White House.
“Today, I ask all Americans to remember — remember those we lost and those who are left behind.” — President Biden on the more than 500,000 lives lost to COVID-19 pic.twitter.com/KtABRcpLHH
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 23, 2021
“We often hear people described as “ordinary Americans.” There’s no such thing; there’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary. They spanned generations. Born in America. Immigrated to America. But just like that, so many of them took final breath alone in America.”
But Biden offered Americans a message of resolve and commitment to fight the disease.
“As a nation, we can’t accept such a cruel fate …“And for me, the way through sorrow and grief is to find purpose. I don’t know how many of you have lost someone a while ago and are wondering, “Is he or she proud of me now? Is this what they want me to do?” I know that’s how I feel. And we can find purpose — purpose worthy of the lives they lived and worthy of the country we love.
“So today, I ask all Americans to remember: Remember those we lost and those who are left behind.”
The president asked Americans to remain vigilant, to stay socially distanced, to mask up, get vaccinated.
” We must end the politics and misinformation that has divided families, communities, and the country and has cost too many lives already. It’s not Democrats and Republicans who are dying from the virus. It’s our fellow Americans. It’s our neighbors and our friends — our mothers, our fathers, our sons, our daughters, husbands, wives.
“We have to fight this together, as one people, as the United States of America. That’s the only way we’re going to beat this virus, I promise you. The only way to spare more pain and more loss — the only way these millstones [sic] no longer mark our national mourning — these milestones, I should say — no longer mark our national mourning. Let this not be a story of how far we fell, but of how far we climbed back up. We can do this.
“For in this year of profound loss, we have seen profound courage from all of you on the frontlines. I know the stress, the trauma, the grief you carry. But you give us hope. You keep us going. You remind us that we do take care of our own. That we leave nobody behind. And that while we have been humbled, we have never given up. We are America. We can and will do this.”
