Time to mourn: As COVID-19 deaths reach 400,000, let s remember those we have lost
President-elect Joe Biden has called for today, Jan. 19, to be a moment of national unity and remembrance.
Betsy Hodges and Tom Tait
Opinion contributors
When the 117th Congress was sworn in on Jan. 3, America had lost 352,000 souls to COVID-19; by Wednesday, when President-elect Joe Biden takes office, the country will have lost more than 400,000.
The higher the death toll, the harder it is to fathom. Nearly one out of every 750 Americans has now died, an entire city’s worth of grief and pain.
We are among the few people privileged to know the living, breathing, beautiful value of such numbers. We were once the mayors of Anaheim, Calif., (population 350,000) and Minneapolis (population 429,000); to us, the unfathomable looks a lot like home, like the histories and dreams, the entire worlds, that are nurtured and built across a city’s grid.
Twice last week, I had the privilege to speak with Milius to find out more about her journey, growing up in Hollywood, movie-making and working for the U.S. president.