Biden leads moment of silence as US tops 500,000 coronavirus deaths

&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpcnt">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"wpa">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<span class&equals;"wpa-about">Advertisements<&sol;span>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div class&equals;"u top&lowbar;amp">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<amp-ad width&equals;"300" height&equals;"265"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; type&equals;"pubmine"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-siteid&equals;"111265417"&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab; data-section&equals;"1">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;amp-ad>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;<&sol;div><p>The Covid-19 death toll in the US has topped 500&comma;000&comma; a staggering number that all but matches the number of Americans killed in the Second World War&comma; Korea and Vietnam combined&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>President Joe Biden held a sunset moment of silence and a candle-lighting ceremony at the White House and ordered American flags to be lowered at federal buildings for the next five days&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow&comma;” Mr Biden said&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;We have to resist viewing each life as a statistic or a blur&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The grim milestone&comma; as recorded by Johns Hopkins University&comma; comes as states redouble efforts to get the coronavirus vaccine into arms after last week’s winter weather closed clinics&comma; slowed vaccine deliveries and forced tens of thousands of people to miss their shots&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite the rollout of vaccines since mid-December&comma; a closely watched model from the University of Washington projects more than 589&comma;000 dead by June 1&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The US toll is by far the highest reported in the world&comma; accounting for 20&percnt; of the nearly 2&period;5 million coronavirus deaths globally&comma; though the true numbers are thought to be significantly greater&comma; in part because many cases were overlooked&comma; especially early in the outbreak&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The first known deaths from the virus in the US were in early February 2020&period; It took four months to reach the first 100&comma;000 deaths&period; The toll hit 200&comma;000 in September and 300&comma;000 in December&comma; then took just over a month to go from 300&comma;000 to 400&comma;000 and another month to climb from 400&comma;000 to 500&comma;000&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The US recorded an estimated 405&comma;000 deaths in the Second World War&comma; 58&comma;000 in the Vietnam War and 36&comma;000 in the Korean War&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Average daily deaths and cases have plummeted in the past few weeks&period; Virus deaths have fallen from more than 4&comma;000 reported on some days in January to an average of fewer than 1&comma;900 per day&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>But experts warn that dangerous variants could cause the trend to reverse itself&period; And some experts say not enough Americans have been inoculated yet for the vaccine to be making much of a difference&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Instead&comma; the drop-off in deaths and cases has been attributed to the passing of the holidays&semi; the cold and bleak days of midwinter&comma; when many people stay home&semi; and better adherence to mask rules and social distancing&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Dr Ryan Stanton&comma; an emergency room doctor in Lexington&comma; Kentucky&comma; who has treated scores of Cocid-19 patients&comma; said he never thought the US deaths would be so high&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I was one of those early ones that thought this may be something that may hit us for a couple months… I definitely thought we would be done with it before we got into the fall&period; And I definitely didn’t see it heading off into 2021&comma;” Dr Stanton said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Snow&comma; ice and weather-related power outages closed some vaccination sites and held up shipments across a large swathe of the nation&comma; including in the Deep South&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As a result&comma; the seven-day rolling average of administered first doses fell by 20&percnt; between February 14 and 21&comma; according to data from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The White House said that about a third of the roughly six million vaccine doses delayed by bad weather were delivered over the weekend&comma; with the rest expected to be delivered by mid-week&comma; several days earlier than originally expected&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>White House coronavirus response co-ordinator Andy Slavitt on Monday attributed the improved timeline to an &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;all-out&comma; round-the-clock” effort over the weekend that included employees at one vaccine distributor working night shifts to pack vaccines&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>More than 44 million Americans have received at least one dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine&comma; and about 1&period;6 million per day received either a first or second dose over the past seven days&comma; according to officials&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The nation’s supply could expand significantly if health regulators approve a single-shot Covid-19 vaccine developed by Johnson &amp&semi; Johnson&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The company said it will be able to provide 20 million US doses by the end of March if it gets the green light&comma; and would have capacity to provide 100 million vaccine doses to the US by the end of June&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>That supply will help government officials reach the goal of having enough injections to vaccinate most adult Americans later this year&period; On a global scale&comma; the company aims to produce one billion doses this year&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div style&equals;"padding-bottom&colon;15px&semi;" class&equals;"wordads-tag" data-slot-type&equals;"belowpost">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<div id&equals;"atatags-dynamic-belowpost-68ed33ea6a484">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;<script type&equals;"text&sol;javascript">&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;window&period;getAdSnippetCallback &equals; function &lpar;&rpar; &lbrace;&NewLine;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;&Tab;if &lpar; false &equals;&equals;&equals; 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