Of All the People

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• Of All the People
• Jeffrey R. Di Leo (bio)

PANDĒMOS (Πάνδημος), i.e. "common to all the people," occurs as a surname of Aphrodite, and that in a twofold sense, first describing her as the goddess of low sensual pleasures as Venus vulgivaga or popularis, in opposition to Venus (Aphrodite) Urania, or the heavenly Aphrodite. She was represented at Elis by Scopas riding on a ram. The second sense is that of Aphrodite uniting all the inhabitants of a country into one social or political body. In this respect she was worshipped at Athens along with Peitho (persuasion), and her worship was said to have been instituted by Theseus at the time when he united the scattered townships into one great body of citizens.

—Leonhard Schmitz (1859)

The pandemic has now raged on for three years—and there is no clarity as to when it will end. When US president Biden announced on national television that "the pandemic is over," the next morning he was reminded that he does not have the authority to make such a decision. Just because many act as if the pandemic is over, the fact remains that people in the US are still becoming sick and dying from COVID-19.

As of mid-September 2022—and the time of Biden's announcement—four hundred to five hundred Americans were dying from a pandemic that to date had claimed the lives of over one million in the US—and over 6.5 million worldwide. While the seven-day death average of 491 reported on September 20, 2022, was a far cry from the 3,280 reported on January 28, 2021, the issue remains as to what is the minimum number of daily deaths to remove the designation pandemic.

Aside from the fact that there is no set criterion to designate an outbreak a pandemic, there is also none to undesignate an outbreak a pandemic. Apparently, because the World Health Organization (WHO), an arm of the United Nations, dubbed the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic back in 2020, it is up to them to undub it. In other words, the pandemic is only over when the WHO sings. But is it? [End Page 1]

Just as the negative affects of the wars fought by Americans continue long after these wars have been designated as over by authorities, so too will the negative affects of the pandemic continue after the WHO, Biden, and other authorizers dub the pandemic over. An inventory of the negative affects of the pandemic that will persist long after people stop dying directly from COVID-19 is comparable in scope to inventories amassed by all of the major wars fought by Americans from 1775 to the present.

This list includes the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), the War of 1812 (1812–15), the Mexican-American War (1846–48), the American Civil War (1861–65), the Spanish American War (1898), World War I (1914–18), World War II (1939–45), the Korean War (1950–53), the Vietnam War (1965–73), and the War on Terror (2001–present), which the US Department of Defense says includes Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003–10, primarily in Iraq), Operation Enduring Freedom (2001–14, primarily in Afghanistan), Operation Inherent Resolve (2014–present, primarily in Iraq, Syria, and Libya), Operation Freedom's Sentinel (2014–21, Afghanistan only), and Operation New Dawn (2010–11, primarily in Iraq).

Horrifically, the sum total of pandemic fatalities in the US at the time of Biden's announcement equated to about 80 percent of the US fatalities in all its major wars. To wit, as of September 21, 2022—according to Statista and the New York Times, respectively—US fatalities in all its wars since 1775 were 1,304,444, and US deaths from COVID-19 since 2020 were 1,050,691. And, depending on when the pandemic is declared over, its fatality figures will surely match, if not exceed, US wartime death figures. Thus, solely based on this necro-data, the negative affect of death during the pandemic in the US is comparable to the negative affect of the total loss of life in this country over the course of its complete history of warfare. And...