Why measure COVID deaths in absolute rather than per capita numbers?

[Chronos]

Quoth snfaulkner:

No fucking shit. I understand what per capita means. And I understand it’s uses. TOTAL deaths gets the headlines because the average human who cares about other humans wants to know how many names, how many faces, how many family’s were destroyed by whatever it is that is being talked about.

Then why report on the total number of deaths in the US? People in other countries have names, faces, and families, too.

And no, humans don’t care about millions of people far away from them. We probably should, bu that’s not the way we’re wired: We each care about perhaps 200 people, at most.