Member-only story
200,000 People Are Dead — Voters Need to Remember That
The problem isn’t being surprised by Trump’s callousness — it’s allowing him to numb you to the point that we mirror his behavior
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
Last week, the United States met a historical moment with a collective shrug — as clear a signal as any the national nightmare that has made us the pity of the world will only grow deadlier in the months ahead.
According to data collected by Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. officially crossed 200,000 Covid-19 deaths. That figure — most likely a significant undercount — and the 6.8 million confirmed infections reaffirm how poorly America has failed to protect its population. In just six months, more Americans have died from the coronavirus than those that were killed in World War I, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. And if our mortality rates continue, it will become the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.
“For comparison, by the end of the year we will likely have seen more deaths from Covid-19 than we saw from diabetes, influenza, pneumonia, kidney disease, and suicide combined in 2017,” Caitlin Rivers, an…
