At which point they are promptly lambasted for making light of a global pandemic with a 7-figure body count.

You can lean into it but only so far.

Hate to be callous, but as global pandemics goes, a 7 figure body count over almost two years and over the whole world is not that bad.

It's the 6th highest body count of any pandemic in history after The Black Death, Spanish Flu, AIDS/HIV, The Plague of Justinian, and the Antonine Plague, and it's on track to beat the Antonine Plague.

This is highly misleading as you are ignoring the number of deaths compared to the population.

The Antonine plague killed 2,6% of the world population. Covid, so far? 0.04%. It is not even close to beat the Antonine plague.

Just for perspective: The upper estimate for covid deaths in 2020 was 3M. The average estimate for yearly tobacco deaths is around 7.5 M. Every FUCKING YEAR, almost 3 covid pandemics caused by cigarretes.

Not to mention that the averaged covid death age is very close to the average life expectation, that is, a majority of people who died of it would probably die in one year or two.

Does it means is not a serious disease? No. it doesn't. Does it means it is a hoax? hell, no!

But does it means that there's an unwarranted level of panic? You sure bet.

You said 7 figure body counts in 2 years weren't bad by global pandemic standards.

7 figure body counts in 2 years put you in the top ten deadliest natural disasters in human history.

No one was talking about fraction of the population, nor was anyone talking about effective reduction of life expectancy. You specifically were using the metric body count.

If you want to make an argument that this pandemic isn't that bad because the people who died this time don't count for as much as those who died in other pandemics, you can do so, but I think that's a poor strategy for corporate PR.

You can’t compare absolute numbers. Why do you insist on that? Do you think world population was always the same? Really?

If the question is a matter of absolute numbers, which for body count it is, then yes I can.

I agree with your points but I also think it's an important distinction that people choose to smoke cigarettes. I don't think folks without mental health issues are intentionally getting COVID.

I was thinking the same thing in the beginning. "Stay home, have a Corona Corona." Maybe team up with drizzly or another delivery service, and all the chain restaurants that were suddenly allowed to have takeout drinks.

Yeah, there are ways to trun this into something useful and at the same time help people.

Not at all making light of the pandemic, but I think this was a missed "opportunity" for those guys.