January 19, 2021

The U.S. has hit a grim milestone on the eve of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration: 400,000 deaths from Covid-19, according to a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

The staggering toll comes amid a struggling national vaccination effort that has resulted in just 12.3 million shots administered — well below the Trump administration’s goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020. Biden, meanwhile, has set an ambitious target of 100 million shots by the end of his first 100 days in office.

"This will be one of the most challenging operational efforts we’ve undertaken as a nation,” Biden said Thursday, announcing the details of his vaccination plan. “We’ll have to move heaven and Earth.”

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