President Joe Biden will take part in a candle-lighting ceremony on Monday night, followed by a moment of silence to acknowledge the grim milestone of 500,000 deaths due to coronavirus in the United States.
Biden will be joined during the event by first lady Jill Biden, as well as Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff. Prior to the ceremony, Biden plans to deliver a statement marking the occasion, which will take place at 6:15 pm Eastern Time.
On Sunday evening, the U.S. reportedly surpassed 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic began, according to a tally from NBC News. Other sources show that total deaths from coronavirus was just under 500,000 at this time, but will likely surpass that number by the time Biden delivers his remarks this evening.
The number of deaths reached due to coronavirus so far is equivalent to the number of U.S. lives lost during both World War II and the Vietnam War, or roughly equal to the total population of Kansas City, Missouri.
The move to acknowledge the number lost to COVID is a stark departure from what Biden’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump, would typically engage in when it came to reminders of the impact of the virus on American lives. At the 400,000 COVID deaths mark, for example, which happened in mid-January, Trump did not even acknowledge the milestone, let alone hold a ceremony to acknowledge the solemn occasion as Biden is doing Monday night.
Indeed, on the evening prior to their inaugurations, it was Biden and Harris who held a moment of silence at the Lincoln Memorial, to acknowledge the U.S. deaths at that time.
While in office, Trump frequently tried to deflect away from statistics highlighting how many had perished due to a virus he once claimed would disappear within a matter of days. During an interview with Jonathan Swan of Axios last August, for example, Trump tried to change the metric by which we should measure the impact of COVID-19, by trying to dismiss the total number of deaths recorded at that time. When Swan persisted in questioning the former president about the U.S. death toll, Trump finally acknowledged that a significant number were dying from the virus, but doing so in a curt and seemingly indifferent way.
“They are dying, that’s true. And you have — it is what it is,” Trump said at the time.
While the grim milestone being reached on Monday is difficult for many to take, there are small signs of optimism on the horizon. The current numbers for infections are still much too high to feel untroubled over, experts warn, but in recent weeks there has been a noticeable decline in both the rate of new cases being reported as well as the number of deaths occurring across the country per day.
The seven-day average of new cases being counted, for instance, was at 195,064 cases per day on January 20, according to figures from The New York Times. As of February 21, the daily average was down to 66,393 per day.
The rate of deaths is also diminishing. The seven-day rate of new deaths being reported a month ago was 3,056 per day. While still too high in the eyes of health experts, the February 21 rate of new deaths being reported is at 1,928 per day — a welcome decrease in that metric.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.