The United States has reached a grim new milestone in the coronavirus pandemic with more than 500,000 people killed.
That's more than the total number of Americans killed in World War II (405,000 deaths), the Vietnam War (58,000) and Korean War (36,000) put together.
President Joe Biden has led a solemn ceremony outside the White House to recognise the shocking death toll milestone.
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He also addressed the country and said: "As a nation, we can't accept such a cruel fate. We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow.
"Today I ask all Americans to remember. Remember those we lost and remember those we left behind.
"We often hear people described as ordinary Americans. There's no such thing. There's nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary. They span generations. Born in America, emigrated to America.
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"So many of them took their final breath alone in America."
The country has seen more than 28.4 million people infected with Covid-19, but the rate of infection has dropped dramatically since the vaccination program and a mask mandate began.
While the number of new cases is falling, experts are still worried.
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Dr Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told NBC's Meet the Press: "We are still at about 100,000 cases a day. We are still at around 1,500 to 3,500 deaths per day. The cases are more two-and-a-half-fold times what we saw over the summer."
Despite America having five per cent of the world's population, it has recorded a fifth of the world's coronavirus infections.
The US' death toll is more than double the amount of Brazil's for the pandemic, which is at 246,504. Mexico is in third place with 180,107 deaths.
Top infectious diseases expert Dr Anthony Fauci believes the US could be forced to wear face masks until next year to ensure the community is safe.
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Speaking to NBC, he wouldn't be drawn on a specific date on when America could be back to normal.
"We want to get that baseline really, really, really low before we start thinking that we're out of the woods," he said.
He's keeping an eye on the mutations of the coronavirus that have so far ravaged the UK and South Africa. There have been new variants also discovered in Japan and Brazil so far.
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"If in fact this becomes more dominant, we may have to get a version of the vaccine that is directed specifically against the South African isolate," Dr Fauci told Fox News.
Featured Image Credit: PA