US hits ‘tragic milestone’ of a million Covid deaths
PRESIDENT Joe Biden appealed to world leaders at a Covid-19 summit yesterday to re-energise a lagging international commitment to attacking the virus as he led the US in marking the “tragic milestone” of one million deaths in the United States.
He ordered flags lowered to halfmast and warned against complacency around the globe.
“This pandemic isn’t over,” Mr Biden declared at the second global pandemic summit. He spoke solemnly of the onceunthinkable US toll: “One million empty chairs around the family dinner table.”
The coronavirus has killed more than 999,000 people in the US and at least 6.2 million people globally since it emerged in late 2019, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Other counts, including by the American Hospital Association, American Medical Association and American Nurses Association, have the toll at one million.
“Today, we mark a tragic milestone here in the United States, one million Covid deaths,” he said.
The president called on Congress to urgently provide billions of dollars more for testing, vaccines and treatments, something legislators have been unwilling to deliver so far.