1. Short thread: I have something to say about how we have been tracking #COVID19 primarily through numbers. As a historian of violence, I am concerned ab casualty figures becoming our only frame for understanding this. My brain stops comprehending what they mean beyond about 10.

2. It is not helpful to imagine casualties as the amount of people that could fill a large stadium, or as the population of Y. We have to remember that 6,000 deaths simply means 6,000 individual people with hopes & dreams, and family, friends, coworkers, neighbors who loved them.

3. Thinking about the enormity of the virus in death toll numbers can be useful, but is also a defense mechanism that protects us, & distances us, from engaging with the individual experiences of pain and death. Numbers never capture how many are left mourning, or survive w PTSD.

4. I know it's hard to think of these figures as bigger (beyond deaths) AND smaller (on a personal, lived-experience level) than they are. It takes practice and is not fun, but I have found it to be the most compassionate, comprehensive, & actionable way to think about violence.

5. I also think it's the best way to frame this so that we are equipped to fully address the losses we'll face when this is all over: people, institutions, culture, art. It's bigger than you think. That doesn't mean we get to lose sight of what it means for an individual person.