In thinking about what he said.

Regardless of whether what he said is accurate or not, I think society in general is too isolated and removed from death. It’s why we spend a high percentage of our healthcare dollars on the last six months of life. Often prolonging lives that the person living it either no longer fully comprehends or no longer wishes to be living.

I’ve seen a number of people fight tooth and nail to keep someone on a machine or to tube feed someone that doesn’t have any idea who they are any more.

Most people don’t have a good concept of how many people died every day in the US before this came along. (Using data from 2017 it’s more than 7,700 per day).

We could whip everyone into a frenzy over about ten different causes of death if we reported on and obsessed about them the way we are about this virus. And that’s not an exaggeration.

Our response to this is disproportionate the threat. And the response itself will cause what I’ve seen described as deaths of despair.

One study showed a percentage of the US population equal to around 55,000 people dies for every 1% increase in unemployment. It isn’t a question of money and comfort vs lives. It’s lives vs lives.