I want to spend a moment to put the death reports today in Arizona into perspective. As a suicidologist, I study mortality on a regular basis.

Today, 147 deaths due to COVID-19 were reported in Arizona.

#ArizonaCovid19 #arizonacovid #covid19 #arizona

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Arizona set a record for suicides in 2018, with 1438 suicides. Each suicide (understandably) a tragedy of human loss. That works out to about 4 suicides per day.

The COVID deaths reported today = 37X the rate of suicides in Arizona.

But it gets much, much much worse.

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Below is a graph of the top causes of death in Arizona, expressed as "Deaths per day" (yearly rate/365)

Heart disease is #1 (12455 deaths in 2018, or 34/day)

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And here's today's 147 deaths in Arizona:
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In fact... look what happens when I take the TOP 15 CAUSES OF DEATH IN ARIZONA and add them together:

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In total, in 2018, 59,282 people died in Arizona. That's 162 deaths per day.

COVID-19 is almost equivalent to the total number of deaths per day due to ALL OTHER CAUSES OF DEATH.

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This is tragic, preventable, horrific death on a scale that is historic. I know 147 seems trite compared to some numbers we've seen, but I hope this helps put it into perspective, and why the medical and scientific communities are so on fire about this.

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