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WASHINGTON (AP) –
With sunset remarks and a moment of national silence, President Joe Biden on Monday faced the once unimaginable loss of the country – half a million Americans to the COVID-19 pandemic – as he tried to find a balance between grief and hope.
Addressing the “grim and heartbreaking milestone” directly and publicly, Biden attended a lectern in the Cross Hall of the White House, unhooked his face mask, and delivered a moving eulogy to the more than 500,000 Americans he has seen. said he knew how to know.
“We often hear people described as ordinary Americans. There is nothing like it, ”he said Monday evening. “There is nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were amazing.
“Just like that,” he added, “a lot of them took their last breaths on their own.”
President whose life has been marked by family tragedy, Biden spoke in deeply personal terms, referring to his own losses as he tried to comfort the vast number of Americans whose lives have been forever changed by the pandemic .
“I know too well. I know what it’s like not to be there when it happens, ”said Biden, who has long approached grief with more force than perhaps any other American public figure. “I know what it’s like when you’re there, holding their hands, as they look you in the eye and escape.” That black hole in your chest, you feel like you’re being sucked into it.
The president, who lost his first wife and baby daughter in a car crash and later an adult son to brain cancer, raised grief with a message of hope.
“This nation will smile again. This nation will once again have good days. This nation will know joy again. And in doing so, we will remember each person we’ve lost, the life they’ve lived, the loved ones they’ve left behind.
He said, “We must resist becoming numb with pain. We must resist viewing every life as a statistic or a blur or, on the news. We must do this to honor the dead. But, just as important, take care of the living.
The President ordered flags on federal property to be reduced to half staff for five days, then led the moment of community mourning for those lost to a virus that often prevents people from coming together to meet. remember their loved ones. Monday’s grim threshold of 500,000 deaths was in play against contradictory cross-currents: an encouraging drop in coronavirus cases and concerns about the spread of more contagious variants.
Biden’s handling of the pandemic will surely define at least the first year of his presidency, and his response showed the inherent tension between preparing the country for the dark weeks ahead while also offering optimism about the release of vaccines. . this could ultimately put an end to this American tragedy.
After speaking, the President along with First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff stood outside the White House for a moment of silence as the sun set. A black garland draped the door through which they passed. Five hundred brightly lit candles – each representing 1,000 lost people – lit up the stairs on either side of them as the Marine Band performed a sad rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
The milestone comes just over a year after the first confirmed death in the United States from the coronavirus. The pandemic has since swept the world and the United States, undermining the country’s healthcare system, shaking its economy and rewriting the rules of everyday society.
In one of his many symbolic breaks with his predecessor, Biden did not hesitate to offer keepsakes for the lives lost to the virus. His first stop after arriving in Washington on the eve of his inauguration was to attend a dusk ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to mourn the dead.
That dark moment on the eve of Biden’s inauguration – usually a time of celebration where America marks the democratic tradition of a peaceful transfer of power – was a measure of the enormity of the losses for the nation.
The total of COVID-19 deaths in the United States had just passed 400,000 when Biden was sworn in. 100,000 more died last month.
Former President Donald Trump has invariably sought to downplay the total, initially claiming the virus would go away on its own and later locking himself into a prediction that America would suffer far fewer than 100,000 deaths. Once the total eclipsed that mark, Trump shifted gears again and said the scale of the losses was actually a success, as it could have been a lot worse.
Outside of the shallow tweets marking milestones of 100,000 and 200,000 deaths, Trump has not overseen any moment of national mourning, no memorial service. At the Republican National Convention, he made no mention of the suffering, leaving that to First Lady Melania Trump.
And at campaign rallies across the country, he falsely predicted the nation was ‘turning the corner’ on the virus as he ignored security measures such as masks and pushed governors to lift restrictions against advice public health. In audio tapes released last fall, it was revealed that Trump told reporter Bob Woodward in March: “I always wanted to play it down. I always like to minimize it because I don’t want to create a panic. “
Biden, on the other hand, has long drawn on his own personal tragedy to comfort those who cry. He pledged to level with the American public on the severity of the crisis and has repeatedly warned that the nation is going through a “very dark winter”, now challenged by the arrival of more contagious virus variants.
Biden also deliberately set expectations low – especially when it comes to vaccinations and when the nation can return to normal – knowing he could achieve a political victory by exceeding them. It is on track to far exceed its original promise to deliver 100 million vaccines in its first 100 days, with some public health experts now urging it to set a much more ambitious goal. The administration says it expects to have enough vaccines available for every American by the end of July.
Biden’s reference to next Christmas for a possible return to normal has raised eyebrows in a country exhausted by the pandemic and seemed less optimistic than projections made by other members of his own administration, including Dr Anthony Fauci, who suggested a summer return.
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Lemire reported from New York.
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