US nears 500,000 deaths

WASHINGTON: The United States faces a dark milestone this week despite a recent decline in Covid19 cases as it prepares to mark half a million deaths, and President Joe Biden plans to memorialise the lives lost.

While the number of Covid19 cases fell for the fifth straight week and officials scrambled to inoculate the population, the nation is poised to reach 500,000 deaths from the highly infectious respiratory disease.

It has been nearly a year since the pandemic upended the country with duelling public health and economic crises.

‘‘It’s nothing like we’ve ever been through in the last 102 years since the 1918 influenza pandemic . . . It really is a terrible situation we’ve been through and that we’re still going through,’’ White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci said.

More than 28 million Covid19 cases have rocked the US and 497,862 people have died from the virus there.

The White House said it planned a memorial event in which Biden would deliver remarks.

A White House spokesman said the president, vicepresident and their spouses would hold a moment of silence today and there would be a candlelighting ceremony at sunset.