Over 250,000 deaths from the coronavirus in the U.S. so far, and increasing by over 500 every day right now. New infections are coming at a rate of hundreds of thousands a day.

Trying to help myself imagine what 250,000 people means:

1. The population of Berkshire County = 126,000
   • Almost twice the population of my county have died.
2. Franklin County @ 71,000 + Berkshire County = 197,000
   • More than the combined populations of my county and the one next to it have died.
3. Hampshire County @ 162,000 (with 5 colleges: UMass, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, Amherst, and Hampshire) + Berkshire County = 288,000
   • At the current death rate, we’ll reach the combined populations of Berkshire and Hampshire counties soon.

Wiping much of Western MA off the map—that’s the reality of COVID-19 in the U.S.

[WordPress won’t let me embed the live chart from Our World in Data for hyper-save-their-asses reasons. So you’ll just have to click the link for up-to-date statistics on COVID cases and deaths in the U.S.]