President Joe Biden has addressed the nation as the US marks 500,000 deaths from Covid-19, the highest toll of any country in the world.

“As a nation, we can’t accept such a cruel fate. We have to resist becoming numb to the sorrow,” he said.

The president and vice-president, and their spouses, then observed a moment of silence outside the White House during a candle-lighting ceremony. More than 28.1 million Americans have been infected, another global record.

“Today I ask all Americans to remember. Remember those we lost and remember those we left behind,” President Biden said, calling for Americans to fight Covid together.

How did Biden mark the occasion?

Mr. Biden ordered all flags on federal property to be lowered to half-mast for the next five days.

At the White House, he opened his speech by noting that the number of American deaths from Covid was higher than the death toll from World War One, World War Two, and the Vietnam War combined.

“Today we mark a truly grim, heartbreaking milestone, 500,071 dead,” he said.

“We often hear people described as ordinary Americans,” he went on to say. “There’s no such thing, there’s nothing ordinary about them. The people we lost were extraordinary. They span generations. Born in America and immigrated to America.”

“So many of them took their final breath alone in America,” he continued.