When President Donald Trump mobilized a health squad to advise him and the nation on the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, he was given projections of death vastly exceeding the number of Americans who died in the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Initially these numbers included 2.2 million Americans. These later were reduced to 240,000 deaths. The latest Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation model, just out, has it at nearly 82,000 deaths by Aug. 1, 2020.Now let’s be clear. All these numbers are unacceptable and involve real people: fathers, mothers, grandparents and occasionally a child but always someone loved. Life matters. Any death is serious of course, but this projection is only 20,000 more than the recorded deaths from the flu season of 2017-2018.Why does this ma
