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Let’s talk about this meme. If you are diagnosed with COVID, your likelihood of dying is at a minimum 2–4x that of your likelihood of dying if you had participated in the Normandy landings on D-Day. Be a patriot, put on a mask, and socially distance.
The Allies landed 153K or so soldiers on the beaches at Normandy on D-Day. Another 200K Navy personnel took part on ferrying them across. This resulted in 4414 confirmed Allied dead, for a fatality rate of 1.25% (or 2.23% if you assume only soldiers landing on the beach died.)
COVID-19 has had a Case Fatality Rate of 4%, globally (3.9% in the US, 15.4% for the UK, and 8% for Canada if we’re sticking with the Allies.) https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
And we’re learning that those who survive even mild or asymptomatic cases will often suffer long term debilitating effects ranging from diminished lung capacity to organ failure and long term cardiac and neurological disorders.
Done of this is to diminish the bravery of those storming the beaches at Normandy, but to put in perspective the danger this disease poses and to remind you not to diminish the courage of people going about their daily lives.
An astute observer has pointed out to me that this is not Normandy. This is in fact Operation Torch in North Africa, in 1942: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Torch & https://www.ww2online.org/image/us-soldiers-storming-coast-north-africa-1942
Going with the numbers on Wikipedia, the Allies committed 107,000 troops to the invasion of North Africa, resulting in 1856 Allied dead, or a fatality rate of 1.7 %
This poster makes another important point: https://twitter.com/tedlandau/status/1284571860043067392?s=20. Graph 1 looks at the US Population, and Graph 2 factors the US, UK, and Canada together.*
* For the purposes of this, I'm referring to them as the the Allies, but it's worth noting I'm excluding the Free French and the populations of the UK's colonies.
These are all normalized to per 100K, by the way.
I'm reposting this to be more clear, but this poster has a great point. Assuming the number of participants / cases as a population, here is the rate per 100K. https://twitter.com/JPerry1648/status/1284564877395156994
As @dhnexon points out, this is pretty poor political messaging: https://twitter.com/dhnexon/status/1284599497713233924?s=20
And yet, I first saw it as a repost from the Facebook page of Mark Meuser, a GOP candidate for California Secretary of State. https://www.facebook.com/markpmeuser/photos/a.586505268124695/2870900653018467/?type=3&theater
