Pandemic deaths have numbed our humanity and perception of risk COVID-19 is not the first event to demonstrate the numbing effect of big data, but it reinforces the challenge of developing a true perspective of risk. This article was first published in the newsletter Managing Outcomes . On one terrible day in December, COVID-19 deaths on a single day in the United States — for the first time — exceeded the death toll from the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Commentators noted that the 3054 COVID fatalities in one 24-hour period also exceeded the deaths at Pearl Harbour in 1941, and more than died as a result of the Johnstown flood in 1889; Hurricane Katrina in 2005; Hurricane Maria in 2017; and the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.