WASHINGTON (AP) –
With commentary on the sunset and a national moment of silence, President Joe Biden on Monday faced the country’s unimaginable loss – half a million Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic – while trying to strike a balance between mourning and hope.
Addressing the “dark and painful milestone” directly and publicly, Biden rose to a pulpit in the White House’s Cross Hall, took off his face mask and gave an emotional compliment to more than 500,000 Americans he said he knew.
“We often hear people being described as ordinary Americans. There is no such thing, ”he said Monday night. “There is nothing common about them. The people we lost were extraordinary. “
“As simple as that,” he added, “many of them took their last breath on their own.”
A president whose own life was marked by family tragedy, Biden spoke in profoundly personal terms, referring to his own losses as he tried to console the large number of Americans whose lives were changed forever by the pandemic.
“I know very well. I know what it is like not to be there when it happens, ”said Biden, who has long approached grief more strongly than perhaps any other American public figure. “I know what it’s like when you’re there, holding their hands, while they look you in the eye and run. That black hole in your chest, you feel like you’re being sucked into it. “
The president, who lost his first wife and daughter in a car accident and later an adult son due to brain cancer, gave sadness a message of hope.
“This nation will smile again. This nation will experience sunny days again. This nation will experience joy again. And in doing so, we will remember each person we lost, the lives they lived, the loved ones they left behind. “
He said: “We have to resist becoming insensitive to sadness. We have to resist seeing each life as a statistic or a blur or on the news. We must do this to honor the dead. But, equally important, taking care of the living. “
The president ordered the flags on federal properties to be reduced to half the frame for five days and then led the moment of community mourning for the lost due to a virus that often prevents people from gathering to remember their loved ones. Monday’s dark limit of 500,000 deaths was happening against contradictory cross-currents: an encouraging decline in coronavirus cases and concerns about the spread of more contagious variants.
Biden’s pandemic management will certainly define at least the first year of his presidency, and his response showed the inherent tension between preparing the nation for the dark weeks ahead and at the same time offering optimism about vaccine distribution. this could eventually end the American tragedy.
After he spoke, the President along with First Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff stood in front of the White House for a moment of silence at sunset. A black flag covered the door they passed. Five hundred brightly lit candles – each representing 1,000 lost people – lit the stairs on either side of them while the navy band played a sad version of “Amazing Grace”.
The milestone occurs just over a year after the first coronavirus fatality in the United States. The pandemic has since swept the world and the United States, stressing the country’s health system, shaking its economy and rewriting the rules of everyday society.
In one of his many symbolic breaks with his predecessor, Biden did not shy away from offering memories of the lives lost to the virus. His first stop after arriving in Washington on the eve of his inauguration was to attend a twilight ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to mourn the dead.
That dark moment on the eve of Biden’s inauguration – typically a moment of celebration when America marks the democratic tradition of a peaceful transfer of power – was a measure of the enormity of the loss for the nation.
The total number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States had just exceeded 400,000 when Biden took the oath of office. Another 100,000 died last month.
Former President Donald Trump invariably looked to minimize the total, initially claiming that the virus would go away on its own and, later, stalling on a prediction that America would suffer far fewer than 100,000 deaths. As soon as the total eclipsed that mark, Trump changed gears again and said the scale of losses was actually a success story because it could have been much worse.
Apart from the superficial tweets that mark the milestones of 100,000 and 200,000 deaths, Trump did not oversee any moment of national mourning, any memorial service. At the Republican National Convention, he made no mention of suffering, leaving that to First Lady Melania Trump.
And in campaign demonstrations across the country, he erroneously predicted that the country was “turning the corner” on the virus, while he disregarded security measures, such as masks, and pressured governors to lift restrictions on public health councils. On audio tapes released last fall, it was revealed that Trump told journalist Bob Woodward in March that “I always wanted to minimize. I still like to minimize it because I don’t want to panic. “
Biden, on the other hand, has long relied on his own personal tragedy while comforting those who suffer. He promised to be indignant with the American public about the seriousness of the crisis and repeatedly warned that the country was going through a “very dark winter”, now challenged by the arrival of more contagious variants of the virus.
Biden also deliberately set low expectations – especially for vaccines and when the nation can return to normal – knowing that he could have a political victory if he overcame them. He is on his way to far exceed his initial pledge to deliver 100 million vaccines in his first 100 days, with some public health experts now asking him to set a much more ambitious goal. The government says it hopes to have enough vaccine available to all Americans by the end of July.
Biden’s reference to next Christmas for a possible return to normal raised eyebrows in a nation tired of the pandemic and seemed less optimistic than projections made by others in his own administration, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, who suggested a return in the summer .
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Lemire reported from New York.