Biden: U.S. coronavirus death toll to probably top 500,000 next month

U.S. President Joe Biden said on Thursday the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus will probably top 500,000 next month, painting a grim picture of what he said will be a difficult battle.

In a White House event, Biden said the rollout of the vaccine has been a "dismal failure so far."

"Things are going to continue to get worse before they get better," Reuters cited Biden as saying.

Biden inherited a pandemic raging out of control when he took office Wednesday with the U.S. tallying an excess of 140,000 daily cases since December. Daily deaths meanwhile hit a near all-time high on the day Biden took the oath of office when 4,377 fatalities were recorded by Johns Hopkins University.

The only other time that number was surpassed was about a week ago when 4,462 deaths were tallied Jan. 12. In all, 408,011 known deaths have been liked to the virus since the US outbreak began about a year ago, according to Johns Hopkins.