I think it’s likely that the COVID-19 epidemic could be as severe as to claim 35,000 lives in the USA this year. It could be less severe, of course! Or more. It’s still hard to say. 1/
But I’m sensing some complacency about this possibility. People say, “more people die of (regular) flu.” Well, ~36,000 die of flu, that’s true. But flu is a top-ten killer. So, with COVID-19, we would be adding a new major (albeit not wholly independent) killer to our country. 2/
Let me put it this way: motor vehicle accidents kill 35,000 Americans per year. If we could miraculously *stop* those deaths (we try!), we’d be rightly pleased. So *adding* so many COVID-19 deaths should alarm us. It’s a huge number of deaths, worthy of our concern. #socy126 3/
