We knew covid would skyrocket. & still, I don't understand CNN, NYT, WaPo. 216 k cases today. Around 4,000 of those people will die. I want to see banner headlines. Acknowledge the vastness. "But the numbers will just go up tomorrow!" More banners. No normalization.

If the current US fatality rate holds at 2%--and it may climb as hospitals overcrowd--some 4,160 of the new US cases announced today--the phone calls received, "positive"--will die, many within a month. Today was 9/11 and then some. Tomorrow will be worse.

Too bad nobody has phone books anymore. (We don't where I live.) You could open one up, count up a column, figure out how many hundreds on a page, and count the pages to make 4,160, roughly the number given death sentences today. Tear out the pages. Gone.

Since we don't have phone books, you could count the contacts in your phone. Maybe 100. Let's say 200. Imagine they all got calls today telling them they're not going to make it. Times that by 20. 4,000 calls. Let those phones ring in your ears.

Maybe neither sight nor sound connects for you. 4,160 bodies. Imagine you're in an arena. It's warm. We're warm. We generate heat. Until we don't. 4,160 bodies today started down a short path to cold.

Some 4000 bodies. Let's not speak of smell. Too much. So consider the space. 4000 morgue drawers. 4000 plots in a cemetery. Think of that land. Too much. Cremation. Picture 4000 urns. Consider the ashes.

We've come to another point where to look away from death is to cultivate death. So look: 216,000 new cases today, of which likely some 4000 will die. Look at them. You can't. We can't imagine 4000 faces. Try to imagine just 10. 1, 2, 3... gone, gone, gone...

Last week they said an American was dying of covid every minute. That was last week. Now a body breathes its last every 30 seconds. Imagine a timer. 30 seconds: ding! 30 seconds: ding! 2,857 times. Just today. Then it's tomorrow.

Another way to measure the 4000 dead to come from today's 216,000 new cases: fabric. Suits, ties, dresses, jeans. Cotton, wool, silk, polyester. Yards and yards and yards. Think of it sewed together like one of those Christo installations, patchwork acres of fabric, covering all.

For just the 4000 likely to die from today's new cases we'll need some 4000 hospital beds. 4000 sets of sheets. 4000 blankets, pillows.