Congress to mark 800K American COVID deaths with moment of silence

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Congressional leaders will hold a moment of silence Tuesday to mark the more than 800,000 Americans who have died from COVID-19.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., will join other bipartisan members of Congress on the eastern steps of the Capitol to commemorate the grim milestone, according to a press release.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., wears a face mask as she hosts a visit by King Abdullah II of Jordan, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 22, 2021. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

More than 450,000 Americans died from COVID-19 in 2021, according to Reuters, which also noted that the deaths this year account for 57% of all COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. since the start of the pandemic.

The number of deaths related to COVID-19 in 2020, by comparison, was 385,343, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report from Reuters also ranked the U.S. as worst in terms of per capita deaths from COVID-19 among the Group of Seven countries in the period between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30.

President Joe Biden speaks about the authorization of the Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5-11, in the South Court Auditorium on the White House campus on Nov. 3, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

“It’s a very sad moment, it’s mind-boggling,” Dr. Michael Rodriguez, vice chairman of the department of family medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, told NBC News. “We’re beyond numb.”

In June, members of Congress held a similar moment of silence when the COVID-19 death toll in the U.S. hit 600,000 people.

“It is particularly jarring at this moment — a moment of recovery, optimism and hope — to remember the enormity of lives lost over the past 15 months,” Schumer said on the Senate floor at the time. “Not only that, we face the grim reality that these recent fatalities happened while Americans were on the verge of getting the vaccine. Some had their appointment just days away.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a press conference about student debt outside the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 4, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
(Getty Images)

“So, as our fellow Americans are taking their masks off, going back to work, seeing families and friends, and returning as they should to life, let us remember those who cannot,” Schumer added. “Let us hold them in our hearts a little while longer.”

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