CNN: Joe Biden describes 1 million COVID fatalities as “irreplaceable losses”

Biden honored the occasion during the White House’s latest virtual Global COVID-19 Summit, reflecting on the pandemic’s impact on the nation after over two years. “This pandemic isn’t over. Today, we mark a tragic milestone here in the United States—1 million COVID deaths. One million empty chairs around the family dinner table. Each irreplaceable loss is irreplaceable. Each leaving behind a family, a community, forever changed because of this pandemic. “Our hearts go out to all those who are struggling,” Biden said during his opening remarks at the summit, subsequently admitting that the virus had killed millions more people around the world. Throughout the pandemic, older Americans have been disproportionately affected, as well as minority populations. According to CDC data, seniors accounted for around three-quarters of all COVID-19 fatalities. Although racial and ethnic disparities have lessened over the course of the pandemic, the risk of dying from COVID-19 is around twice as high for black, Hispanic, and American Indian individuals in the United States as it is for white people. Vaccines have saved millions of lives, yet about half of the COVID-19 deaths in the United States have occurred in the last year. The government has not released an official figure of how many vaccinated individuals have died from COVID-19, but the CDC reports that the risk of dying from COVID-19 is still around five times higher for unvaccinated individuals than for vaccinated individuals. The full article by Sam Rossum, Nikki Carvajal, Maegan Vazquez, and Deidre McPhillips can be viewed here .