Statistics like these are more useful as propaganda than they are as an accurate picture of our interaction with a new pathogen.

When I hear them stated "naked" like this (which is to say without any context or complex debate which is actually quite necessary to give real meaning to numbers), I hear an emotional appeal to authority rather than a well-articulated call to rational policy.

Let's just say for the sake of argument that these numbers are accurate (which is in truth debatable, though that debate is not being permitted, because of precisely the anti-science thinking I refer to in my original comment), what do they mean? Numbers of dead tell us nothing about options. They tell us nothing about alternate scenarios, and whether those numbers might go up or down depending on different strategies.

When I see these numbers, I see a call to urgency. They are usually stated with the intention of refuting the "hoax" argument of covid. They mean when used this way, "Look at all the dead bodies! This is real; it's not a hoax!"

They tell us nothing, however, about what matters: which strategies work to protect which populations against a respiratory virus? Are the strategies the authorities are mandating actually achieving the goals they are designed to achieve? What are the unwanted "side-effects" of these policies? In other words, what's the "cost" in what is (if debate were permitted) a hugely complex societal cost-benefit analysis?

These are all the kinds of questions (among many more) which in our current environment are strictly verboten. The reaction to the Great Barrington Declaration says it all. The primary signatories of that letter are epidemiological experts with decades of experience in addressing these kinds of questions. What is the reaction of the authorities to genuine scientific inquiry and debate of what is the most effective scientific response to a dangerous new pathogen? Censorship. Censorship and "Look at all the dead bodies!"

This is not science. It's a call to submit to authority, and it will lead not to safety (what they are selling) but paradoxically to more death and suffering, both from the disease itself and from the societal costs which the authorities pretend don't exist when they sell us their "solution".