Now that we’ve officially passed the appalling 100,000 milestone of people who have died from Covid-19 (Yes, I’ll be the first to say the actual number is far, far higher) there have been various means put forth to give people a sense of the scale of the loss. I just don’t think numbers of passenger airliners, or stadiums or arenas make the impact those using such examples want them to make. Since I didn’t like the examples I was seeing I decided to come up with my own. Hopefully you’ll agree that what I’ve come up with conveys just how large a tragedy this all has been. So far. It is after all a long ways from being over despite what the flaming orange rectum in the White House wants us to believe.
So you ask how do I propose to give a meaningful measure of just how awful this all has been so far? Well, if you’re reading this it means you can read and therefore are at least grade school age and have therefore no matter how young you might happen to be have stood in line somewhere. Virtually anyone reading this is substantially older than grade school so you’ve stood in all manner of lines in all kinds of places, so I want you to think back on those times before Covid-19 and social distancing. Think of times when you’ve stood in fairly packed together lines of people. Lines so packed there was barely any room between you and the person in front of you. If you’ve been in the service then you know all too well what it’s like to be packed into lines so close you are literally pressed against the person in front of you. In any case, I think it’s likely that more than once you’ve been in a line where there was a foot or less of space between you and the person in front of you.
Bearing that in mind let’s take this to the next step.
Imagine a line in which people were standing so close to the person in front of them there were only inches of space (if any at all) between one person and the person in front of them. Got it? Now, to keep things simple let’s assume 1.5 feet of space per person. That’s a foot and a half between the back of one person and the back of the person in front of them. That should even satisfy folks in Trump’s base – no “sissified social distancing” stuff. Now let’s do some basic arithmetic:
100,000 dead (but upright) from Covid-19 X 1.5 feet per person = 150,000 feet of people in our line.
150,000 feet divided by 5,280 feet (a statute mile) = 28.41 miles!
That’s a line virtually twenty eight and a half miles long of victims packed together about as closely as they can be packed together in line. Most people can picture a couple of places they know that are a little less than thirty miles apart. Especially in small town/rural America aka “Trump country.” Let’s also toss in this tidbit. Assuming an average walking speed of three miles per hour (a pretty fair pace for a long hike even on flat ground) it would take nine and a half hours to walk past that entire line of people who’ve died from Covid-19!
I believe THAT is a visualization most people can grasp, and more importantly that would drive home the point of just how much of a disaster we’ve experience to date. f you’d like to quibble with my numbers and add a bit of space per person that’s okay but as I’ve indicated I picked the 1.5 feet per person both to keep the numbers simple, but to also short-circuit any arguments from conservatives. From the pictures so often see the bulk of the MAGA folks have bellies as big as mine and if anything THEY will think the figure of 1.5 feet per person isn’t enough even if they won’t admit it out loud.
Anyway, that’s my suggestion. I hope it makes an impact with anyone reading this and more importantly makes its way to someone who will start using it in the news.
(Originally posted on Politizoom.com )