Five hundred thousand. 500,000. Five with five zeros after it. Half a million, half a mil. 500 K. Unless you’ve been under a rock or outside the reach of American news outlets, you’ve heard than number a lot this week.  Earlier this week it was reported that’s how many deaths the US has suffered attributable to CoViD-19. That’s 20% of the world’s CoViD death total. Not bad for a country that represents a little over 4% of the world’s population.

500,000…that’s a lot of people. That’s like all of the people in Vermont. Or Atlanta. That’s five times the people who can fit in Ohio State’s football stadium, about ten times the capacity of Yankee Stadium. Five hundred thousand deaths is 167,000 times the number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks on the USA.  It’s as many Americans who lost their lives in World War II, and Korea, and Vietnam. What it took three major wars almost 30 years to do, Orthocoronavirinae betacoronavirus-2 did in one year and 2 weeks.

That’s 20% of the world’s deaths from a country not even 5% of it’s population. Well, why would that surprise us. After all, that same 4.27% of the world controls almost 30% of its wealth, and damn near 99% of its football (as opposed to football). We’re badass. We don’t need no stinking masks, we don’t need no stinking social distancing. Oh but give us those vaccines. Oh yeah baby. The good old US of A has gotten almost 30% of the vaccine doses that have been produced.

We might as well give some back because 30% of Americans polled say they won’t get the vaccine. Last July that was almost 60%. It’s even gone down some since last November when 39% said they wouldn’t get the vaccine. Still, that’s almost 100 million people who I guess think the virus is a hoax. Idiots.

Sorry – no funny stories, no cute picture, no clever wrap up.  But one bright spot – at least it’s not politicians making me sick this week.