Why We're Numb to 250,000 Deaths

[babylonsister]

https://politicalwire.com/2020/11/21/why-were-numb-to-250000-deaths/

Why We’re Numb to 250,000 Deaths
November 21, 2020 at 10:56 am EST By Taegan Goddard

“The U.S. passed 250,000 confirmed deaths from COVID-19 this week, a figure that is truly vast — too vast, perhaps, for us to comprehend,” Axios reports.

“The psychic numbing that sets in around mass death saps us of our empathy for victims and discourages us from making the sacrifices needed to control the pandemic, while it hampers our ability to prepare for other rare but potentially catastrophic risks down the road.”

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Over 255,500 deaths and climbing.

As close to 2,000 a day now are dying with close to 200,000 new cases daily.

Brace yourselves. I cry a little every day.

[catbyte]

2. Stalin was right when he said, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."

[TDale313]

6. Just came to post the same.

😢

[Towlie]

8. Upon researching that I also found this:

 
←

Joseph Stalin 1879–1953 Soviet dictator

I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how.

[TDale313]

3. "The death of one man is a tragedy...

The death of a million is a statistic” 😢 There’s sadly some truth to this. It’s hard for the human mind to process.

[Pisces]

4. Also most of these people are black and brown from lower income areas. Americans already distance

Themselves from the other. We live in suburbs behind gated communities. Even public schools are more segregated than ever. We don’t see or truly know people who have a lot lesser means, who work in the service industry. We live separately, we go to school separately, and as we can see from the election half of this country is ok with racism and xenophobia. This lack of concern for our fellow man doesn’t surprise me. These people watched George Floyd die in a video from a police officer and it didn’t affect them.

[NurseJackie]

5. It's growing at an ever increasing rate. How long before we've reached one million?

[Wounded Bear]

7. Stalin said it many years ago...one death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic...

the individual empathy that most people feel get lost in the numbers.

OTOH there is such a thing as critical mass. Assuming that every person has, on average 5-10 close personal contacts (family, friends), having 250 thousand dead means that upwards of 2 1/5 million Americans have personal experience of knowing a victim of the disease.

It's gets harder and harder to hide that behind fake news claims. Or at least it should be.

[GoCubsGo]

9. Having to see millions of idiots outright flaunting the safeguards and protections put in place

is not helping matters, either. I'm finding it harder and harder to have empathy for the maskholes and COVID deniers. I'm not "numb." I'm fucking pissed off that we are where we are right now because of these people.

[Maeve]

10. Most of us don't see death, we see numbers

Unless the pandemic touches your friends and family, it doesn't touch you. And many are outside the circle of those who have been touched.

That will change.

[Calculating]

11. It's also how they died

They weren't killed by people, they were killed by an invisible faceless enemy.

[lunatica]

12. I don't feel even a little numb

WTF!

[crickets]

13. Yeah, me neither. Millions of us are not feeling numb about it at all. nt