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Blue_playwright

(1,568 posts)
Tue Sep 22, 2020, 07:45 AM Sep 2020

Why our minds can't make sense of COVID-19's enormous death toll

[link:https://apple.news/Ai0VzhFLOSKKcj2h1HsHjWw|]

[link:https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/09/why-minds-brains-cannot-make-sense-coronavirus-enormous-death-toll/|]


When the COVID-19 pandemic started nine months ago, the current reported death tolls were unthinkable. Yet this week, the fatality count will reach 200,000 people in the United States, and global deaths are approaching one million.
Although health officials say the real toll is likely much higher, due to a percentage of coronavirus deaths not being officially classified, the 200,000 statistic is a heartbreaking milestone. It’s a symbolic grim number that’s seared into the public’s consciousness and marks another alarming level of escalation in the pandemic.
The tally means a U.S. death has happened every 1.5 minutes, on average, since the first official fatality in late February. It’s also the equivalent of wiping out a small city—such as Salt Lake City, Utah or Akron, Ohio—or a quarter of Washington D.C. It means we have lost 1,450 plane loads full of people. (Here's where cases are growing and declining in the U.S.)

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Why our minds can't make sense of COVID-19's enormous death toll (Original Post) Blue_playwright Sep 2020 OP
I was thinking about it just this morning genxlib Sep 2020 #1

genxlib

(5,506 posts)
1. I was thinking about it just this morning
Tue Sep 22, 2020, 08:58 AM
Sep 2020

I was on Search and Rescue in Haiti after the Earthquake in 2010. Accurate estimates are hard to come by but the average is about where we are right now.

I will never forget the carnage in that disaster. The smell of death. Bodies piled in the street. The utter devastation on families.

We are spared the sensory impact because the concentration of death is so distributed for us. It doesn't make it less tragic. Just easier to ignore.

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