World War 2 total deaths for USA: 419,400...Total COVID-19 deaths so far: 192,795 per NYT

[steve2470]

WW2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#Total_deaths_by_country (from ALL causes, not just combat)

COVID-19 total: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html

We are at FORTY-SIX (46) percent of the WW2 total. Reflect upon the national trauma we endured as a result of that war.

Will we equal or exceed the WW2 total ? I damn sure hope not. Let's all get out the vote and elect Biden, and then we have a chance to NOT equal that total.

[Blue Owl]

1. K&R for exposure

[drray23]

2. we will unfortunately and before Joe Biden takes the presidency.

Predictions are about 400,000 by January at current pace.

[lapfog_1]

3. something like 1530 deaths per day

we had hit a steady rate of around 800 a day then school opened, sturgis happened, and more people became "tired" of the pandemic... so now we have popped up over 1000 again.

Flu season has just started. Many more people will be homeless this winter, health care access will be more restricted...

but 400K by the end of January is pretty unlikely. 300,000 is almost certain.

[Moostache]

4. Do the math per month...

COVID is 5 to 6 times MORE deadly than WWII...

[Squinch]

5. Yes. We will exceed that. But once Joe is inaugurated, we will be able to bring

it under control quickly.

[Igel]

6. And 675k for the 1918 pandemic.

I.e., the flu under Roosevelt killed 50% more than WWII.

Virus >> Hitler and Hirohito combined, as of 1946.

WWI, the horrible scourge that reset how many think of war, stopped at 53k US war dead. Oh, my. Virus = WWI x 12, with an extra 20k or so corpses stacked in the corner. WWI's death total was a pimple on the butt of the US losses from the virus.

Note that the US population increased (more or less) monotonically from 1914 to 1945. So the war dead in WWII were a smaller percentage of the population compared to the virus. And since 1945 the US population has boomed, so a numerical comparison with WWII, WWI, or the Spanish flu understates how deadly those things long past were (and overstates how deadly the current killer is).

The bloodletting that ended black slavery in the US cost the lives of 618k soldiers. A far greater percentage of the population than the Spanish flu took--and the flu was much, much more lethal than Hitler and Hirohito and Mussolini. But even in absolute count, we paid more in blood in ending slavery than we did in finishing off Nazism, fascism, and Japanese imperialism.

The numbers are mindboggling. But without perspective, they're good for manipulation.

Without reducing them to percentages, though, it's even harder to understand their impact properly. (Properly understanding the impact is, I assume, the actual goal here. Knowledge, and not manipulation.)