American virus deaths at 100,000: What does a number mean?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

The fraught, freighted number of this particular American moment is a round one brimming with zeroes: 100,000. A hundred thousands. A thousand hundreds. Five thousand score. More than 8,000 dozen. All dead.

This is the week when America's official coronavirus death toll reaches six digits. One hundred thousand lives wiped out by a disease unknown to science a half a year ago.

And as the unwanted figure arrives — nearly a third of the global pandemic deaths in the first five months of a very trying year — what can looking at that one and those five zeroes tell us? What does any number deployed in momentous times to convey scope and seriousness and thought really mean?

“We all want to measure these experiences because they’re so shocking, so overwhelming that we want to bring some sense of knowability to the unknown,” says Jeffrey Jackson, a history professor at Rhodes College in Tennessee who teaches about the politics of natural disasters.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/american-virus-deaths-at-100000-what-does-a-number-mean/ar-BB14EvwP?li=BBnb7Kz

[grumpyduck]

1. That's all fine well and good, but

who is even acknowledging the families that have lost someone, the ones that have lost a wage earner, jobs that need to be re-filled, countless people who have lost a friend, and so on and on? The ones who are left behind?

Who?

Not the MSM - they just care about the stuff that sells ad time.

Not the politicians - they just want to focus on POtuS and getting re-elected.

Not the general public - they just react to what they see in the media (until it bites them in the ass).

Not corporate America - they just want to go back to making money.

Not POtuS - it just cares about itself.

What the hell is wrong with this picture?