As Once-Unthinkable Death Toll Nears, Our Brains Literally Cannot Fathom It
The number of Americans who have died from SARS-CoV-2 reached 991,254 on Monday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University data. The Philadelphia Inquirer explains why the human brain just isn’t built to comprehend such large numbers.
The Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Nears One Million Covid-19 Deaths
Slightly more than two years after recording its first Covid-19 death, the U.S. is about to cross a once-unthinkable threshold: one million deaths attributed to the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Covid-19 mortality count—over 990,000 and still rising—is reflected in death certificates recorded by the CDC. Of these certificates, at least 90% list Covid-19 as the underlying cause of death, the CDC said. The remainder list the disease as a contributing cause. (Kamp, Stamm and Bentley, 4/25)
KIRO 7 News Seattle:
Coronavirus: US COVID-19 Death Toll Nears 1 Million
As of 6:45 a.m. EDT Monday, cumulative coronavirus deaths in the U.S. totaled 991,254 – more than any other country, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Brazil had the second-highest number of deaths with 662,891, followed by India with 522,223, Russia with 367,521 and Mexico with 324,129. (Ewing, 4/25)
Philadelphia Inquirer:
Brains Are Bad At Big Numbers, Making It Impossible To Grasp What A Million COVID-19 Deaths Really Means
As of April 2022, there have been nearly 1 million confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. For most people, visualizing what a million of anything looks like is an impossible task. The human brain just isn’t built to comprehend such large numbers. We are two neuroscientists who study the processes of learning and numerical cognition – how people use and understand numbers. While there is still much to discover about the mathematical abilities of the human brain, one thing is certain: People are terrible at processing large numbers. (Hasak and Toomarian, 4/7)
Also —
Yahoo News:
The Children Left Behind By 1 Million U.S. COVID Deaths
Just 10 years old at the time, it was as if Eva Torres’s world fell in when COVID claimed the life of her grandmother in April 2020. Abuela, as the girl called her, had lived just a block from the Bronx apartment she shared with her parents and two older brothers. Grandma was the one who would pick her up from school each day and “hear her 10,000 stories,” said Eva’s mother Angela Torres, “even if she was repeating it for the 20th time.” After Eva’s grandmother passed, the elder Torres watched her daughter’s grades slip. Her once-bubbly girl seemed withdrawn, weighed down by anxiety. “[That kind of loss,] it’s something that you carry with you,” the mother told The 74. “It permeates into your very soul.” (Lehrer-Small, 4/24)
Charleston City Paper:
Over A Quarter Million U.S. COVID Deaths Were Likely Preventable With Vaccines
The U.S. is nearing 1 million COVID-19 deaths, a record that is likely undercounted as it is, due to missed early infections and the advent of at-home testing in the last few months. Data from the months since vaccination was made broadly available in the nation has consistently shown those who are vaccinated are far less likely to come down with serious cases of COVID-19, according to a report by The Washington Post. And a new analysis from the Peterson Center on Healthcare and Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) quantifies the effects of vaccination, estimating that more than 234,000 unvaccinated Americans died who could have lived had they had their vaccine. This was particularly true during the Delta surge in late 2021, most of the deaths each month could have been prevented with vaccination, according to an analysis by Peterson and KFF. (Baldwin, 4/22)
