Downplaying COVID always misses one statistic: collateral damage

There are 2 fundamental forms of collateral damage people fail to understand when downplaying the threat of COVID-19.

Both fall under the category of preventable deaths.

The first is, severe cases of COVID-19 which represent people who could have been saved, but were "sacrificed" because resources were insufficient.

And the second is people who die of other, otherwise preventable diseases because hospitals need to prioritize COVID-19 cases.

The first stat is overlooked by people in areas where the hospitals aren't yet at capacity. And the second is universally overlooked because it is impossible to fully quantify. Primarily because a lot of people will die of something else without ever getting a diagnosis in a system which is overrun.

Also, don't ever say that the survival rate of COVID-19 is 99.9%. I hate seeing this. A person can only "survive" something they have experienced. Since, even in places like the US where the infection rate is at worst in the low double digits, conflating the percentage of the population as a whole which hasn't died of COVID-19 with the "survival rate" is both a VERY dangerous and VERY wrong way to do your math.

The mortality rate is higher than that, and MUCH higher than that when medical systems start getting overrun. If you let this disease runs it's course unabated that "survival rate" will be just a cruel joke in a few years.