I come here again to mark another milestone on our Covid journey. By every official measure, we have surpassed 500,000 deaths from Covid-19. Half of a million members of our United States community are dead from a disease that barely existed 12 months ago. Official estimates say there are likely 100,000 more deaths coming in the next few months. We are wounded.
According to President Biden, we have lost more Americans than in WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War combined. Those conflicts together lasted over 10 years. In another aggressively mishandled epidemic, the on-going HIV/AIDS crisis, around 700,000 Americans have died since its first detection in about 1980, 40 years ago. If all of the deaths from Covid were in one city it would be equivalent to Atlanta, GA, Sacramento, CA, or Kansas City, MO dying in less than one year. The average life expectance of all Americans has decreased by one year, one whole year, just because of Covid deaths. The trauma of losing 1 in every 650 people in this country is staggering.
Please take this seriously. Please wear a mask. Please wash your hands. Please get vaccinated. Please give the people around you 6 feel of distance.
St. Augustine's Chapel 