President Biden plans to mark 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the US with a candle lighting ceremony Monday, according to the White House.
The president will deliver a heartfelt speech at sundown at the White House’s Cross Hall to commemorate the grim death toll milestone, Biden’s press schedule said Sunday.
“The president will deliver remarks on the lives lost to COVID-19 in the Cross Hall,” the schedule states.
“[He will then] hold a moment of silence and candle lighting ceremony at sundown in the South Portico.”
Biden will honor the lives lost to the illness — which on Sunday hovered just under 500,000, according to state health officials — alongside Vice President Kamala Harris and First Lady Jill Biden.
Biden and Harris also held a somber ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial a day before taking office last month to honor the 400,000 lives lost to the coronavirus.
“To heal, we must remember,” Biden said at the time.
