As Sandro Galea, dean at the Boston University School of Public Health, noted in Scientific American, this is not the only epidemic our country is facing. “We should not forget that the U.S. is in the midst of an opioid epidemic which contributed to 70,237 drug overdose deaths in 2017, and a gun violence epidemic which killed 39,429 people last year and over 7,000 so far in 2020,” Galea wrote. “We have also seen up to 52,000 deaths from flu since October.” And by writing specifically about this one, at this time, I’m by no means attempting to minimize or negate the seriousness of our other challenges.