On Monday evening, the President spoke about the more than 500,000 American lives lost to COVID-19, noting that more Americans have died from COVID than those who died fighting in WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War combined.

During an earlier press briefing by the White House COVID-19 Response Team, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that despite the grim milestone, “we continue to see trends head in the right direction” although hospital admissions, and deaths remain at very high levels, and provided the following updates:

• COVID-19 cases have declined over the last 5 weeks with the current 7-day average (approx. 66,000 cases per day) dropping 74% since the peak 7-day average on January 11.
• The current 7-day average for new COVID-19 deaths (slightly more than 1,900 deaths) have dropped 39% since the prior 7-day average — that’s the lowest since the beginning of December.
• The current 7-day average for new COVID-19 hospitalizations (6,500 per day) have declined 60% since the peak on January 9 — that’s the lowest since last fall.