Biden memorializes covid-19 victims after 500,000 die in U.S.
Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Joel Achenbach, The Washington Post
Feb. 22, 2021
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WASHINGTON - By the light of 500 candles as Amazing Grace played outside the White House, President Joe Biden bowed his head in a minute of reflection on the 500,000 American lives lost to the coronavirus, crossing himself after the music faded out.
Moments earlier, the president noted that the U.S. death toll from the pandemic has exceeded both world wars and the Vietnam War combined. The people we lost were extraordinary, Biden said in the White House s Cross Hall. They span generations. Born in America, immigrated to America. But just like that, so many of them took their final breath alone in America.
The big thing they re being hurt from is bodily motion injuries, and that s mostly due to lifting patients, said Audrey Reichard, an epidemiologist at NIOSH who studied the data.
Emergency workers do a considerable amount of kneeling, bending and lifting on the job movements that leave them prone to back injuries and sprains. The vast majority of injuries documented in the federal study happened while workers were lifting a patient, and injuries to the trunk and neck were most common.
The second highest occurrence that leads to emergency room treatment is exposure to harmful substances, such as blood and body fluids, or being spit on. Exposure incidents account for about 27 percent of injuries, although they re often quickly treated.