Breaking News! Coronavirus!
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!