over the summer but 1/2 of September and not too far from an average for the year. That extrapolates to nearly 400,000 deaths per year given current behaviors and restrictions. That's nothing like normal.

Boca suggested above that we're normal when this starts to look like the flu, which would be 1/10 of the deaths, not cases, of where we are now. I think that's a little conservative but we are nowhere near normal. I would be perfectly fine setting restrictions on places like concerts, theaters, barrooms, etc. Anyplace where people are densely packed for long periods of time. I'm not epidemiologist, but look at a Pareto chart of where people become infected and do something to mitigate the top few contributors. I'm not worried about catching covid in the grocery store but I wouldn't go see a Broadway play now. If you suggest people should be free to make that choice I counter with the idea that people shouldn't be free to take covid from Broadway to a restaurant or wherever. I think knocking down the big contributors would go a long way toward reducing deaths and making things more normal.