During his inauguration address as the new president of the United States on the afternoon of Wednesday, January 20, 2021, Joseph R. Biden, Junior said the following statement:
To Those Who Lost Their Lives During the Current Pandemic…
And, in my first act as President, I would like to ask you to join me in a moment of silent prayer to remember all those we lost this past year to the pandemic.
To those 400,000 fellow Americans — mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, friends, neighbors, and co-workers.
We will honor them by becoming the people and nation we know we can and should be.
Let us say a silent prayer for those who lost their lives, for those they left behind, and for our country.
That is a nice thought and sentiment, yes — but perhaps that silent prayer should be amended to include the following estimates of people in the United States who also died during the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic:
- 606,520 people from cancer
- At least 25 of the people who died as a result of the protests and political unrest during the summer of 2020
- Five people who died as a direct — or indirect — result of the events which led to the incident which occurred on Wednesday, January 6, 2021 of a mob which swarmed the Capitol building
Summary
I was going to include statistics of the millions of other people who died in the United States during the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic from heart disease, traffic fatalities, chronic lower respiratory diseases, strokes or cerebrovascular diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, complications from diabetes, influenza, pneumonia, nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, nephrosis, suicide, acquired immune deficiency syndrome, homicide, and a plethora of other causes of death in this article…
…but even though at least several organizations — including but not limited to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States — vehemently and proactively document the absolute latest data on the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic on a daily basis, data for sources of other deaths during the year 2020 is scarce at best for now. Apparently, those statistics are not nearly as urgent.
Thankfully, at least no one in the United States died from a commercial airplane crash during the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic.
The only reason why only deaths in the United States were included in this article was because Joseph Biden offered the silent prayer only for those people in the United States who died from the current 2019 Novel Coronavirus pandemic and not for people elsewhere in the world…
…but approximately 150,000 people die around the world each day. How is one cause of death any more important than another cause of death?
Amen.
Photograph ©2020 by Brian Cohen.
