Today -- February 11, 2020 -- marks the one month 'anniversary' of the first Coronavirus death. It's also the day that 1) Coronavirus was renamed COVID-19 (there's something about renaming things that makes me think of Big Tobacco/Big Nicotine) and 2) the COVID-19 death toll finally surpassed 1,000...1018, to be precise.
To be clear:
COVID-19 has killed an average of 33 people per day, since that first death. The World Health Organization response: Calling it a "crisis", an "epidemic" and a "pandemic", the WHO has declared COVID-19 a "Global Health Emergency", aka, a "Public Heath Emergency of International Concern". Some experts say that COVID-19 has peaked... and that, while there will continue to be many deaths, those numbers may well be in decline now.
Over that same period of time (1 month), tobacco/nicotine has killed 620,000 people globally...or 20,000 per day. Roughly 7% or 8% of those tolls (46,500 and 1,500, respectively) are innocent/non-smoking bystanders, killed by second-hand smoke. Nobody (except many within the anti-tobacco/anti-nicotine movement) calls tobacco/nicotine a crisis, epidemic or pandemic. The WHO response (as well as that of most national governments of the world, especially the CRA and the IRS... and including Health Canada and the FDA et al, provincial/state ministries/departments of health, lung associations, cancer societies, heart and stroke foundations, medical associations, et al): Maintain the $tatu$ quo... and bu$ine$$ a$ u$ual, at all co$t$! And those horrific tobacco/nicotine death numbers continue to rise -- perhaps most tragically, in developing nations...especially those in Africa -- with no end in sight!
The goal (when it comes to COVID-19, as well as virtually every other disease on the planet) is, as it should be, eradication! The goal, as it applies to tobacco/nicotine: As stated previously, Bu$ine$$ a$ u$ual.
Big Tobacco/Big Nicotine (BT/BN), with it's extremely deep pockets, has permeated the highest levels of governments and courts all over the world. Politicians who accept blood money from BT/BN need to be exposed and held accountable.
If for no other reason than the fact that BT's/BN's survival depends almost exclusively on its ability to hook and addict generation after generation of underage kids, BT/BN needs to be run out of business. We have a couple of completely legal ideas as to how to achieve that. Clearly, it's not going to happen overnite, but BT/BN needs to be phased out.
Please join Airspace, with either a donation or a membership...and help bring about the phase out of Big Tobacco/Big Nicotine much sooner rather than later.
Thank you.
Errol
Oh, by the way. It's impossible to know, precisely 1) when the first tobacco/nicotine death occurred and, consequently 2) what the grand total of tobacco/nicotine deaths is, to date. But I think an extremely conservative estimate would be half a billion...that's right folks, 500,000,000 completely preventable deaths, caused by the most rogue and predatory industry on the planet: Big Tobacco/Big Nicotine.
Just one more numerical comparison between COVID-19 and smoking/vaping: Using the current average number of 33 COVID-19 deaths/day... and 20,000 tobacco/nicotine deaths/day, 33 is about 1/600 of 20,000. For those who prefer decimals or percentages, they are .0017 or 0.17%.
And finally, the Director-General of the WHO has described COVID-19 as "Public Enemy Number One"...and also described it as, "...a global threat potentially worse than terrorism."
Well, given all of the above numbers, I have to wonder where the WHO places tobacco/nicotine on its Public Enemy list. And I'm so glad he mentioned terrorism, because...
Tobacco/Nicotine Kills More People -- Every 4 Hours -- Than Were Killed In All Of The 9/11 Attacks!
Update: On March 11, 2020 -- the 2-month anniversary of the first Covid-19 death -- the World Health Organization officially declared Covid-19 a pandemic. The Covid-19 global death toll as of March 11 was 5,617...which works out to an average 90 deaths per day. Meanwhile, tobacco continues to kill 20,000 people a day, worldwide. So, again, the question has to be asked: 90 is less than 1/2 of 1% of 20,000...so if Covid-19 is a pandemic, what the hell do we call tobacco?