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    Biden stopped marking grim COVID milestones as he fought to end the pandemic

    Biden used to talk a lot about the COVID-19 death toll, but over the last year he's shifted to how fight the pandemic. Some want him to go back to addressing the country's grief.
    by Tamara Keith Dec 24, 2021 4 minutes
    Medical historian David Oshinsky, seen here in a 2019 file photo. "We in the United States have a way of commemorating events," he told NPR. "Generally we commemorate them when they're over."

    President Joe Biden pulled his daily schedule card out of his jacket pocket and read a number printed on the back.

    "Today we mark a truly grim, heartbreaking milestone," he said on Feb. 22. "500,071 dead."

    Biden then held a moment of silence on the White House's south lawn, which was illuminated by lanterns symbolizing American lives lost to the COVID-19 pandemic. Just a month earlier, on the eve of his inauguration, he had led a similar ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial recognizing the country's then 400,000 COVID deaths.

    "To heal, we must remember," he'd said. "It's important to heal as a nation."

    But as the year

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