Three Democratic senators introduced a resolution on Wednesday to designate the first Monday of March as COVID–19 Victims and Survivors Memorial Day, The Hill reported.
Sen. Ed Markey, who along with fellow Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich, introduced the resolution, said in a statement that “families across the country have mourned the loss of a loved one, buried a friend, or coped with the death of a partner because of this horrific disease. We owe these families the honor and recognition they deserve, and by marking COVID-19 Victims and Survivors Memorial Day, we will annually remind ourselves of the deadly cost of this pandemic while reaffirming our commitment to getting through this crisis together.”
He said the special day would both “memorialize those lost to the COVID–19 virus and recognize the suffering of COVID–19 survivors.”
Advocacy group Marked By COVID, which has been pushing for such a day, praised the resolution and wrote on Facebook to “help us bring this over the finish line,” adding that “we've been working towards this for almost a year.”
The group said that the House version of the bill, which was introduced in February, has 52 sponsors.
Marked By COVID also said it organized 120 grassroots COVID Memorial Day events in March and convinced more than 150 mayors, state legislators, and congressmen to introduce resolutions calling for a special day honoring the victims of coronavirus.
President Joe Biden, on the day before he entered the White House in January, held a COVID-19 memorial for the more than 500,000 people in the United States who had already died from the coronavirus.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of fatalities in the U.S. has since then increased to 611,000 people.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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