The Daily Kos, a political centre-left blog with hundreds of thousands of readers sent out an email on May 20th, urging their supporters to sign a petition to make the COVID19 vaccine, which does not yet exist, free  for all. They are concerned that poor people will miss out if the vaccine has a price tag. In order to push the urgency the Subject line of the email reads:

100,000 signatures needed: Millions have died of COVID-19. Vaccine must be free.

Given that most people (and possibly the Daily Kos) have not taken the time to check the numbers of global deaths  for themselves, but remain whipped into a frenzy of fear by the 24/7 news cycle, this might be described as irresponsible fearmongering.

As of 24th May and SIX months into the pandemic – the GLOBAL death rate is 344,258. Yes every death is a tragedy, but the number is HALF the number of global deaths in a bad flu season, about which there is never a whisper on main stream media. Not a whisper.