Washington, DC’s sister, Mayor Muriel Bowser passed away on Wednesday from complications from coronavirus disease Covid-19, the mayor said.
Mercia Bowser, 64, was the older sister of the Democratic mayor of the district.
“Mercia was hugely loved and will be greatly missed as she joins the legion of angels who went home too early because of the pandemic,” Bowser said in a statement.
Mercia Bowser had been treated for Covid-19-related pneumonia.
New reported cases of the disease have declined across the country in recent weeks, but health experts say the number of new infections is still high.
“The baseline of daily infections is still very, very high,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Sunday on “Meet the Press.”
“It’s not the 300-400,000 we had some time ago, but we really want to get that baseline really, really low before we start thinking we’re out of the woods,” he said on the program.
On Sunday, the United States saw deaths from the disease exceed 500,000. And the next day, President Joe Biden addressed the nation and held a moment of silence before the dead. More than 28 million cases were reported Wednesday night and more than 506,000 people died, according to NBC News reports.
Also on Wednesday, documents released by the Food and Drug Administration indicate that Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine is generally safe and very effective against the most serious consequences of the disease.
An advisory panel is scheduled in two days to discuss the company’s emergency application, which is expected to be recommended.