WASHINGTON – More than 400,000 people have now died from Covid-19 in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University, on the eve of the presidential inauguration of Joe Biden, who has made the fight against the coronavirus a priority of his first term.
The bleak threshold was reached only about a month after the US recorded its 300,000th death from the disease, in mid-December, and nearly a year since it announced its first Covid death, at the end of February 2020.
The toll in the world’s wealthiest nation remains by far the highest in absolute terms, though some other countries are registering more deaths in proportion to their populations, such as Italy, Britain and Belgium.
After the first Covid-19 death was announced in the US in February 2020 it took about three months to pass the 100,000 mark, during a first wave that hit New York particularly hard.
It took another four months to reach 200,000 fatalities, and just under three months to reach 300,000.
But as cases have surged across the country with the arrival of winter and the holiday season in recent months, deaths have followed suit.
About one American in two believes the virus is currently not at all under control, according to a Washington Post-NBC poll released yesterday.
Some 120,000 people are currently hospitalized because of Covid-19, according to the Covid Tracking Project, which analyzes data from across the country on a daily basis.
The US has recorded more than 24.1 million cases, according to the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University’s coronavirus tracking website – though with testing shaky at the start of the pandemic, the real toll is believed to be much higher.
The US began vaccinating its residents in mid-December, but it will take months before the current outbreak can be contained.
Just over 3% of the population, or about 10.5 million people, have so far received one of the two vaccines licensed in the US – developed by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – of which 1.6 million people have received the two required doses.
Biden, eager to speed things up, has promised 100 million doses injected during his first 100 days in office.
To achieve that goal he will push for the creation of new community vaccination centers in gyms, stadiums and schools, and will mobilize an additional 100,000 health care workers.
Biden also led a tribute to Americans lost to the coronavirus, as he arrived in Washington on the eve of his inauguration.
“It's hard sometimes to remember, but that's how we heal. It's important to do that as a nation,” Biden said in somber, brief remarks near the edge of the reflecting pool, where lights lining the water were turned on as a memorial to those who have died.
“Let us shine the lights in the darkness along the sacred pool of reflection and remember all who we lost,” said Democrat Biden, who has stressed the need to unite the nation after the chaos of outgoing President Donald Trump’s four years in office.
The memorial, hosted by the Presidential Inaugural Committee, saw four hundred lights used to illuminate the shallow body of water at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in Washington.
Meanwhile, Senator Elizabeth Warren – one of Biden’s rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination – said the memorial is a chance for the nation to come together and mourn compatriots who died from the virus.
“I’ll be thinking about my brother Don Reed, and all the families who are grieving loved ones.” – AFP, January 20, 2021
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