Health

Biden To Commemorate US Hitting One Million COVID-19 Deaths

(Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

Dylan Housman Deputy News Editor
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President Joe Biden will commemorate one million American deaths from COVID-19 on Thursday as part of the second Global COVID-19 Summit.

Biden will speak about the milestone at the summit and order flags to be flown at half-staff, the White House said. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has not yet recorded one million COVID-19 deaths in the U.S., multiple independent counts have claimed that the U.S. has already passed that mark.

About 576,000 of those deaths have occurred since Biden took office, according to CDC statistics. The current daily death rate in the U.S. is at one of the lowest points of the pandemic, with an average of 326 Americans dying with the virus every day.

“In remembrance, let us draw strength from each other as fellow Americans. For while we have been humbled, we never give up. We can and will do this together as the United States of America,” Biden said in a statement.

Biden promised to get the virus under control after taking office. Under his watch, the U.S. has continued to lead the world in COVID-19 deaths, becoming the first country in the world to cross the one million-death threshold. Only two other countries, India and Brazil, have reported more than 400,000 deaths. On a per capita basis, the U.S. ranks 18th in deaths globally. (RELATED: The FDA Finally Admits We Should Treat COVID-19 Like The Flu)

At least 5.4 million deaths have been recorded worldwide and attributed to the virus. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the true number of deaths directly or indirectly caused by the coronavirus pandemic may actually be triple that number.