Headline yesterday:
One in Every 500 Americans Dead From Covid.
At first we thought …. that can’t be right!
Doing the math, we found it sadly but indisputably correct.
Population of the US: 330 million. Deaths from Covid: 670,000.
Just days ago the country remembered the 3,000 deaths on 9/11, marked the loss of lives with all kinds of emotion, patriotism, press, national and local displays, political speeches, memorial services.
Yet, 670,000 deaths by Covid,
preventable, still rising daily,
don’t seem to evoke the same sense of a tragedy
many times larger.
I just don’t get it.
In 2001, an event that killed 3000 brought out the best in people. In 2021, 670,000 are dead and a vaccine that will save lives, based on the best science, is turned into a shouting match. A 5-inch square of fabric turned into a reason to attack each other with weapons in the grocery store.
What’s happened to people?
(All original artwork from ArtFields 2021: Numbers Have No Emotion, Stefanie Neuner; Tag! You’re It!, Stacy Bloom Rexrude; Mr. Covid’s Neighborhood, Keith Kennedy; and One, Colleen Galeazzi.
