After all — forgive the repetition, but certain figures bear revisiting — Covid's roughly 290,000 deaths wouldn't raise a blip on a graph of worldwide mortality (reminder: 58 million global deaths in 2019). Covid deaths will barely register in the big picture even if their total multiplies by several times.

For maintaining a precious sense of proportion, check out some other annual global fatalities: influenza, up to 650,000. Typhoid fever, up to 160,000. Cholera, up to 140,000. Malaria, 620,000 in 2017, almost all in Africa (so who cares, right?). In 2018, tuberculosis, developing treacherous antibiotic resistance, killed 1.5 million people. Why haven't we closed down the whole world for TB?