In another grim milestone, the U.S. passed 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 on Monday. And that’s a conservative estimate, passing what some experts painted as the worst-case scenario back when the pandemic started, and about a third of the way to the death toll if the country had taken no action at all. Today, we’ll do the numbers. Plus: The bond market gains and NASA’s new Martian probe.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

• “US surpasses 500,000 COVID deaths” from USA Today

• Some looks at COVID modeling from The New York Times and New York Magazine

• President Biden’s moment of silence at the White House today

• “Technology Stocks Drop Amid Rising Bond Yields” from The Wall Street Journal

• Zoom etiquette

• “Watch new dramatic videos from NASA’s Perseverance rover landing on Mars” from The Verge

Finally: We need your voice memos! Tell us what you think of the show or ask a question for Kai Ryssdal and Molly Wood to answer! Here’s how to do it.