Coronavirus deaths in U.S. pass 500K milestone

Medical workers wearing personal protective equipment due to COVID-19 concerns move a body behind a fence at The Brooklyn Hospital Center, in the Brooklyn borough of New York in April. The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 has topped 500,000 — a number so staggering that a top health researchers says it is hard to imagine an American who hasn't lost a relative or doesn't know someone who died.

A blanket is pulled to cover the body of a patient after medical personnel were unable to to save her life inside the coronavirus unit at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston last year.

Ventilator tubes are attached to a COVID-19 patient at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles in November.

A social distancing marker directs workers at Women & Infants Hospital arriving to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in Providence, R.I., in December.

Pat Marmo, owner of Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral Home, walks through his body holding facility in the Brooklyn borough of New York in April 2020.

Mohammad Ayaz, cousin of Mohammad Altaf, center right, is hugged by a mourner after funeral prayers are given over Altaf's body at Al-Rayaan Muslim Funeral Services in the Brooklyn borough of New York last May.

Gravediggers lower the casket of someone who died of coronavirus at the Hebrew Free Burial Association's cemetery in the Staten Island borough of New York in April 2020.

Patty Trejo, 54, left, looks at her intubated husband, Joseph, in a COVID-19 unit as registered nurse Celina Mande holds a smartphone showing a mariachi band performing for the patient at St. Jude Medical Center, in Fullerton, Calif., on Feb. 15. Trejo visited her husband for the first time since he was hospitalized more than a month ago. A survivor of COVID-19 herself, she invited a mariachi band to give him courage. Surrounded by hospital staff, family members and friends in the parking lot of the hospital, the band played her husband's favorite song, "La mano de Dios," or "The Hand of God." "He needs to know that I still love him, and he needs to know he's got to fight," said Trejo.

Transporters Miguel Lopez, right, Noe Meza move a body of a COVID-19 patient to a morgue at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in the Mission Hills section of Los Angeles in January.

Artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg walks among thousands of white flags planted in remembrance of Americans who have died of COVID-19 near Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in Washington last year. Firstenberg's temporary art installation, called "In America, How Could This Happen," will include an estimated 240,000 flags when completed.

Marks are seen on the face of registered nurse Shelly Girardin as she removes a protective mask after performing rounds in a COVID-19 unit at Scotland County Hospital in Memphis, Mo., in November.