One year ago, when the World Health Organization started calling the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, a total of six new deaths were reported in the U.S.
The number comes from The New York Times, which noted, as of Wednesday, a total of 528,829 people have died in the U.S. from coronavirus. And CNN reported the total is higher than the number of Americans killed in World War I and World War II combined.
President Joe Biden, in his first prime-time address to the nation, will commemorate the one year since the pandemic shut down most of the nation in a televised speech at 8 p.m. on Thursday.
Biden said Wednesday he would use his address to discuss "what we've been through as a nation this past year.
"We cannot let our guard down now or assume that victory is inevitable,” he said on Wednesday. “Together, we're going to get through this pandemic and usher in a healthier and more hopeful future.”
CNN noted that on this day last year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, had warned that "things are going to get much worse before they get better."
He noted on Thursday, during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show: “But I did not in my mind think that much worse was going to be 525,000 deaths."
More than 29 million cases have been reported in the U.S. in the past 12 months.
"After a year of this fight, we are tired, we are lonely, we are impatient," U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Thursday. "There have been too many missed family gatherings, too many lost milestones and opportunities, too many sacrifices."
"We must continue to use proven prevention measures to slow the spread of COVID-19. They are getting us closer to the end of this pandemic."
The vaccines have offered real hope in fighting COVID-19. More than 62 million Americans have received at least one dose of a vaccine, CNN reported. It attributed the information to the CDC. Nearly 33 million people are fully vaccinated.
"Giving vaccinated people the ability to safely visit their family and friends is an important step toward improved well-being and a significant benefit of vaccination," Walensky and other CDC officials wrote in an article for the Journal of the American Medical Association.
CNN said that Pfizer CEO Dr. Albert Bourla, in an open letter marking the one-year anniversary of the WHO pandemic declaration, celebrated "a sense that liberation is on the horizon," bolstered in part by "encouraging real-world data about our vaccine coming out of Israel and other countries."
However, Bourla, warned: “We are not out of the woods," as he stressed the need to remain "vigilant in the coming months" as the company continues to research antiviral therapies.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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