Trying to visualize 500,000 dead, the monstrous American pandemic
By Artur Galocha and Bonnie Berkowitz
A year ago, covid-19 had killed only a handful of people in the United States. Now the official death toll from the pandemic is equal to the size of a major city, more than the population of Kansas City, Mo., and nearly as many as Atlanta or Sacramento.
It can be difficult to understand the enormity – almost half a million people are gone. What if we imagined them traveling as a group? Or killed in action? Or all buried together?
If 500,000 passengers traveled by bus …
An average motor bus – the kind of bus you take from city to city – seats 50 people. Just transporting the number of people who died last month would require dozens of buses.
