Good day folks. I found out just now that there is a new Covid Variant. According to local news, KTUL Tulsa, “A new coronavirus variant has been identified in Washington, as states across the country continue to deal with a surge in omicron cases.”
“We’re aware of that and what we’ve seen with that so far is we know that that’s even more highly transmissible than omicron,” said Dr. Bruce Dart.” A quote from the same source that I will list below:
https://ktul.com/news/local/new-covid-variant-could-be-more-transmissible-than-omicron
So we have one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse gadding about like a naughty school boy. I wonder if any of the others have come around for a spot of tea.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, War was alive and well. They state “Violence against civilians resulted in over 5,000 deaths worldwide.” “Battle related deaths numbered over 18,000.” “Explosion/remote violence led to more than 4,000 deaths.” “Riots resulted in over 600 fatalities.” These statistics are included with a great deal of detail in this website: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-where-are-the-worlds-ongoing-conflicts-today/
So last year twenty seven thousand six hundred people died due to warfare. This doesn’t count injuries, PTSD, rapes, or damage to infrastructure or cultures.
And how is Famine doing? According to the UN “Recent analysis by the UN agency reveals 41 million people in 43 countries “are teetering on the very edge of famine”, up from 27 million two years ago.” These numbers are from 2021. “In Somalia in 2011, 260,000 people died of hunger – and by the time the famine was actually declared – half of that number had already died,” Mr. Beasley recalled. “We can’t debate the numbers to death when people need our help now.” David Beasley is head of the World Food Programme. Source: https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094472
A more somber site with more comprehensive data is https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/people-and-poverty/hunger-and-obesity/how-many-people-die-from-hunger-each-year/story. This site runs a clock, letting you see how many people are dying of hunger in virtual real time. 614,474 deaths from the last year, according to its count at 10:05 pm.
So two of the Horsemen have racked up six hundred forty two thousand and seventy four deaths. So much for War and Famine.
We’ve discussed Covid, but I haven’t thrown numbers at you yet. According to the website “Worldometer” three million five hundred fourteen thousand seven hundred and twenty two people died of Corona-19 world wide.
So Plague really does seem to be the heavy weight in this contest. But there are more tricks up Plague’s bony sleeve than just Corona. What about other contagions?
Hopefully my readers are more successful (saying they care to look it up), but I can’t find any recent sites that simply tell me how many people died of infectious diseases, except for an article from 1996 (that’s right, from the last millennium) that relays any hard and fast statistics for deaths world wide due to the Horseman of Plague.
Based off of this website, we know that back then seventeen million people died every year from infectious diseases. Various web sites make the claim that deaths due to infectious diseases have been declining (pre Covid, that is).
This site claims that infectious diseases have been decreasing by a rate of 18.73 percent across thirty four years: https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/generalinfectiousdisease/72024
Massively oversimplifying, let’s assume non covid infectious disease deaths have declined 18.73 percent since 1996. That gives us a non covid death rate of thirteen million eight hundred fifteen thousand nine hundred deaths. Adding in the covid deaths from the Worldometer site, that gives us seventeen million three hundred thirty thousand six hundred and twenty two deaths.
That’s very roughly twenty seven times the combined deaths of War and Famine combined. Covid alone has claimed roughly 5.5 times as many lives as War and Famine combined. It seems that we have the real champion here. Plague is the most destructive, so far, of the four Horseman.
The Fourth Horseman, however, is usually accounted to be Death. Since I’ve already been measuring deaths, let’s assume this Horseman covers all the other forms of Death that exist (why be redundant yet repetitive?).
60.12 million people died last year, according to Ourworldindata.org: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/number-of-deaths-per-year
So if Death is over all of the deaths, he accounts for 60.12 million lost chess games. If he only presides over those not caused by War, Pestilence, or Famine, that leaves us with forty two million one hundred forty seven thousand three hundred and four deaths last year. So….if we are striving for immortality…..
War and Famine are less deadly than covid. But Covid is only a drop in the bucket compared to deaths overall. As bad as Covid is….it accounts by my likely limited math to only .0584518 of one percent of all deaths.
Make what you will of this information. I’ll take a cue from the Four Horsemen here. I don’t say anything. I just reap the harvest sown…..
Please leave any comments you like, this is such a dark topic, I don’t even presume to make any conclusions…..
Tired Midnight Blogger (What Blogs at Midnight) 