Terrible Math

 A moment of silence. We tap the breaks on our lives that have continued while half a million Americans have have no lives to continue. Because they died. They died from a disease that continues to mock our attempts to understand and cure it. Sorry cancer and common cold, you're going to have to take a back seat to COVID-19. 

I should start, since the paragraph break up there counts as my moment of silence, by saying that this five hundred thousand number is not any kind of mechanical ticker that updates thanks to some Audio-Telly-o-Tally-o-Count Chap variant that counts dead bodies rather than the ones that fall asleep in Dr. Seuss. These are the numbers reported by the Center for Disease Control, and the suggestion that they may be off by a few thousand here or there starts to fall into that margin of error that large numbers so often do. The fact that reading each one of those roughly half a million names, just their first names, would take more than sixty hours gives you some idea of the enormity of what we are dealing with. 

I should also like to mention that we, as Americans, tend to focus on the number of red white and blue coffins. There are nearly two and a half million deaths from COVID-19 worldwide, and while this number has an even bigger valley of potential error, it is worth noting that it is the United States that continues to lead the pack when it comes to having the most. 

Or maybe it's China. Or Russia. You can't trust them. They're probably hiding their numbers in hopes of appearing more masterful in the face of a crisis that is killing thousands of humans every single day, and has not relented for a year. 

I'll say it again: Half a million. The problem with saying it over and over doesn't change the reality of every individual father, daughter, cousin, friend, co-worker or lady from down the street who has died from this virus. And millions more who contracted the disease and though they have recovered will likely suffer after-effects for the rest of their lives. The ones they get to keep living. 

A quick experiment: Try and picture in your mind the faces of all the people you know. They can be movie stars or people you never really met. How long before they become a muddy smear of noses and mouths and eyes and indistinguishable features that simply overwhelm your tired brain? Half a million is a number best suited for describing budgets, or distances to the moon and back. It is a number so big that it does not allow for much distinction. Tragic, because each one deserves their own story, their own headline. But we don't have room. Or time. We lower the flags and light candles. And we write blogs. 

And the number keeps growing.

Wear a mask.