Focusing on those stats makes it's easier, I suppose, to focus on this covid thing as an assignment. The trouble is that for many who see it like this, nothing else matters: our task is to stop the spread and to hell with the consequences (worrying about that puts you in the basket of heartless bastards, idiots, and conspiracy theorists). It appeals, I think, to people who want to excel and be seen as competent, but don't have any real intellectual curiosity/foolhardiness to look at things independently. I saw it in the reaction of the intellectual class here after the 2008/2009 crisis and I see it now. They are too worried about losing their reputation (for having the right opinion), and too consumed with the ... terror... to notice or care about the loss of liberty, privacy, and financial independence. It has been quite an education.