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Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

Over 800,000 people have died in the US alone, more than any other event in US history.

It wasn't. Heart disease and cancer kill far more people on an annual basis and nobody bats an eye. According to the CDC, these were the top 10 causes of death in 2020[1]:

* Heart disease: 696,962

* Cancer: 602,350

* COVID-19: 350,831

* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 200,955

* Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 160,264

* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 152,657

* Alzheimer’s disease: 134,242

* Diabetes: 102,188

* Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,544

* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 52,547

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

all are lower than 800,000

The 800,000 figure spans two years. The above figures are for one year (2020).

> Heart disease and cancer kill far more people on an annual basis and nobody bats an eye

I mean there are massive institutes, companies, and laboratories engaged in research on both these topics, tons of fund-raising, campaigns to improve diet and exercise, shockingly expensive treatments and so on. Other than all of that, yes, nobody bats an eye.

2M people die every year in the USA, is that more than any other event in History?

such lunacy

They clearly mean from one specific event. What one event in the USA has lead to 2 million deaths? You're combining all deaths and treating it as if it were the same thing.

>You're combining all deaths and treating it as if it were the same thing.

Couldn't that be applied to deaths from other diseases? Why wouldn't all influenza deaths be considered one event by this standard?

No? Are we in an influenza pandemic or epidemic right now? Again, we're talking about events here.

There have been six of them in the last 140 years with respect to influenza. The Spanish Flu pandemic killed 675k (in the USA, like 50 mil worldwide or something wild like that.)

Any other event in US history.

If you're so sure, name one.

Civil war was less than a million, by the way.

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