The national vaccine rollout is slow, and new strains of the coronavirus are alarming scientists worldwide. A pandemic that is still raging has killed 400,000 Americans. That could be a reflection of how complicated this moment really is. But on this day, of all days, they chose to celebrate from the warmth of their homes. They elected the first Black woman vice president in U.S. They replaced Donald Trump with Barack Obama’s former vice president. and beyond have a lot to be grateful for. The showing was so small that journalists seemed to outnumber the revelers I watched as reporters interviewed the same handful of attendees, over and over again.ĭemocrats in D.C. But the only civilians I saw downtown during the ceremony were a few committed joggers and a clutch of Joe Biden supporters lingering outside the White House. The streets of the capital would have been packed with out-of-towners ready to pay $25 a head to visit the Spy Museum, and lining up at sidewalk vendors’ tables to buy Kamala Harris–themed merch. If this had been a normal Inauguration Day, in a normal year, the National Mall would have been covered with hundreds of thousands of shivering people hoping to catch a glimpse of the new president. It was a fitting end to the noisiest era of American politics that many Americans can remember. Walking through Washington, D.C., today, the silence in the streets was the sound of a country not quite ready to exhale. Trump downplayed the pandemic in its early stages and repeatedly predicted rosier numbers about the expected death toll in the United States than came to fruition.Donald Trump’s presidency concluded not with mutiny in state capitals or an attempted attack on his successor, but with a calm, conventional ceremony in an otherwise quiet city. 20 after defeating Trump, a Republican, in the 2020 presidential election, in part by arguing he would do a better job of addressing the pandemic. The country has the highest overall death figure, reflecting the lack of a unified, national response last year, when the administration of former President Donald Trump mostly left states to their own devices in tackling the greatest public health crisis in a century.īiden, a Democrat, took office on Jan. "We have to fight this together as one people, as the United States of America."Ībout 19% of total global coronavirus deaths have occurred in the United States, an outsized figure given that the nation accounts for just 4% of the world’s population. It's cost too many lives already," he said. "We must end the politics of misinformation that have divided families, communities and the country. The president called on Americans to remain vigilant in fighting the pandemic by continuing to wear marks, observe social distancing and receive vaccinations when it was their turn. While we've been fighting this pandemic for so long, we have to resist becoming numb to sorrow," Biden said in an emotional address at the White House.īiden also ordered that all flags on federal properties and military facilities be lowered to half-staff for the next five days, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "As a nation, we can't accept such a cruel fate. Newsletter sign-up: Get The COVID-19 Brief sent to your inbox.ET at the White House after the president's remarks. That's more Americans who have died in one year in this pandemic than in World War One, World War Two and the Vietnam War combined," he said.īiden, Vice President Kamala Harris, first lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff marked a moment of silence at 6:15 p.m. "Today we mark a truly grim, heartbreaking milestone - 500,071 dead. deaths from COVID-19, urging Americans to set aside partisan differences and fight the pandemic together. President Joe Biden led Americans in observing a moment of silence on Monday to commemorate the grim milestone of 500,000 U.S.
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