Letters to the editor: Florida passes 10,000 dead from coronavirus pandemic

Last week we reported the chilling fact that over 10,000 people had died in Florida in the coronavirus pandemic. In fact, on Wednesday, Aug. 19, our death toll stood at 10,167, and more than half of those deaths happened in the last month. These grim numbers reach us as the state continues to plan for schools to reopen and push for a full business reopening as well. Possibly even more depressing than these numbers were the number of comments on our Facebook page claiming that the statistics are all lies and calling people sheep, bandying about the long-since-discredited "0.4 percent" stat (we get it, math is tough) or pivoting to what-aboutism in the form of comments like "But how many people die from regular flu?" (that would be roughly 3,000 per year in Florida, by the way) and "That's a lot, but more people have died in New York!" What does that have to do with the price of coffins? Do better, Florida.