On Wednesday evening, the coronavirus death toll in the United States passed the very grim milestone of 100,000.
As the New York Times notes, the death toll exceeds that of any other nation across the globe. It is also higher than the number of U.S. military combat fatalities in every conflict since the Korean War.
The coronavirus pandemic has also matched the toll of the deadly 1968 flu pandemic.
On Thursday morning, Donald Trump tweeted out his condolences to the families of those who have lost their lives.
“We have just reached a very sad milestone with the coronavirus pandemic deaths reaching 100,000,” he wrote.
Even as the death toll climbed toward 100,000, Trump was on his way to Florida in the hopes of watching the launch of astronauts into orbit from the United States. The launch was postponed due to the weather.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is vying to take the White House in 2020, issued his own statement on the death toll, noting that “this is a fateful milestone that we should have never reached.”
“If the administration had acted just one week earlier to implement social distancing and do what it had to do…as many 36,000 of these deaths might have been averted,” Biden added, citing a Columbia University study.