U.S. President Joe Biden and his wife and Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband observed a moment of silence in memory of the pandemic’s victims.
President of the United States, Joe Biden, addressed the nation in connection with the fact that the number of deaths from coronavirus in the country has exceeded half a million people. This is the highest number in the world. “We as a country cannot accept such a cruel fate. We must resist the state of numbness into which we have been plunged,” he said during a memorial ceremony at the walls of the White House.
The president, accompanied by his wife, and Vice President Kamala Harris, with her husband, then observed a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the pandemic. “Today, I ask all Americans to remember those we have lost,” Biden said.
The United States also leads the world in the number of covid-19 cases. According to the latest data, 28.1 million Americans have been infected with the coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic.
By order of the President, flags at all federal buildings will be lowered for the next five days. In Washington, the bells of the National Cathedral were rung 500 times, one for every thousand Americans who died.
Biden began his speech with a sad statistic: the number of Americans who have died from COVID-19 is already higher than the total number of deaths from World War I, World War II, and the Vietnam War combined.
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“Today we have reached a truly horrific milestone – 500,071 dead. We often hear them referred to as ‘ordinary Americans. They are not ordinary. The people we lost were significant. They represented several generations – from those who immigrated to America to those who were born here. And many of them said goodbye to life on this earth in utter loneliness,” said Joe Biden.
He recalled the dark moments in his own biography: his first wife and daughter died in a car accident in 1972, and one of his sons died of brain cancer in 2015. “I know what it’s like not to be there when tragedy strikes. I also know what it’s like to hold the hand of a loved one in the last moments of their life. [In my view, the only way to endure that pain and loss is to find a purpose,” the president said.
Joe Biden’s approach to the coronavirus pandemic differs from the policy of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who often questioned the danger of the virus and disregarded measures to prevent the spread of infection. On his last day as president, January 19 of this year, Trump held an event in memory of Americans who died from COVID-19, which at that time numbered 400 thousand people. This means that in the last month more than 100 thousand infected people have died in the USA. Despite the fact that disease and mortality statistics are gradually decreasing, the indicators are still high and hospitals in most states are still operating at maximum capacity.
“For decades to come, people will talk about this terrible milestone in the nation’s history: so many deaths from respiratory infections,” said U.S. Surgeon General Anthony Fauci.