Biden will commemorate 500,000 Covid-19 deaths by candle lighting

Biden will commemorate 500,000 Covid-19 deaths by candle lighting

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The president plans to make remarks by Monday at sunset as soon as Monday and hold a candle lighting at the White House if the threshold is exceeded, a White House official said. First lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and second Mr Doug Emhoff will also take part.

The plans for the ceremony highlight the empathic message that Biden has wanted to bring to the U.S. response since the adoption of the U.S. coronavirus response – a departure from his predecessor. On Friday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said the government was working on plans so the president could use his own voice and platform to remember a moment to remember the people whose lives were lost, the families still living. hardship. ‘

One day before taking office, Biden, Harris, and their spouses held a somber ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial to commemorate the 400,000 lives lost to Covid-19 in the United States at the time.

“To heal, we must remember,” Biden said during the January event. Harris also spoke briefly at the memorial and remarked that ‘we have mourned for many months ourselves. Tonight we mourn and begin to heal. ‘

Their message contrasts with former president Donald Trump, who regularly defends the government’s response to the pandemic, but rarely expressed sadness over the victims. In September, Trump told Axios on HBO that the death toll from American Covid-19 “is what it is.”

“They’re dying. It’s true. And you – that’s what it is,” Trump said at the time. “But that does not mean we are not doing everything we can. It is as much under control as you can control it.”

While cases of coronavirus are declining and vaccinations are ticking, the US is struggling to cope with the threat of new variants. Experts – inside and outside the White House – are far from sure that America will finally emerge from the pandemic, with dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading specialist in infectious diseases, told CNN on Sunday that it was ‘possible’. Americans will still have to wear masks in 2022 to protect themselves against the coronavirus, even if the US can reach a “significant degree of normality” by the end of this year.

“It’s a race to get the vaccine wide enough and fast enough there, so it eliminates the chance of spreading even more strains,” said Dr. Bala Hota, a specialist in infectious diseases at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, said. “We are not out of the woods yet.”

This story was updated on Sunday with additional information.

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