Biden urges world to renew Covid fight as US nears 1m deaths
US President Joe Biden appealed to world leaders on Thursday for a renewed international commitment to attacking Covid as he led the US in marking the approaching “tragic milestone” of 1 million deaths at home from the virus. He ordered flags lowered to half-staff and warned against ‘complacency’ around the globe. “This pandemic isn’t over,” Biden told the second global pandemic summit. “Today, we mark a tragic milestone here in the United States, 1 million Covid deaths — 1 million empty chairs around the family dinner table.”
The coronavirus has killed nearly 999,000 people in the US and more than 6.2 million people globally since it emerged in late 2019, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Biden issued a proclamation on Thursday directing that US flags be flown at half-staff through sunset on Monday to honour those who lost their lives to the virus.
Biden called on Congress to provide more funding for testing, vaccines and treatments, something lawmakers have been unwilling to deliver so far. The lack of funding — Biden has requested another $22.5 billion of what he calls critically needed money — is a reflection of faltering resolve at home thatjeopardisestheglobalresponse to the pandemic. Eight months after he used the first such summit to announce an ambitious pledge to donate 1.2 billion vaccine doses to the world, the urgency of the US and other nations to respond has waned. Momentum on vaccinations and treatments has faded even as more infectious variants rise and billions of people across the globe remain unprotected. — ap