I'm going to be Mr. Positive for once. The primary reason for this is a huge decline in the number of deaths due to motor vehicle crashes over the last 20 years. Hurray!
At least we aren't doing anything crazy like using numbers to make decisions about risk
"Malignant neoplasm" is the third most frequent cause of death?
dang, it sure sounded like something you'd call Ghostbusters about.
BACK OFF MAN, I'M A SCIENTIST!
On the not-so-positive-side, my hopes for Covid silver linings have not panned out. There were fewer school shootings while many schools were closed, but still more kids got shot. And there was less driving while people were working from home, but still more people died in car accidents.
People are very noticeably worse at driving than in the before times.
My pet theory is not that we forgot how to be sociable creatures or that the social fabric deteriorated. I think it's specifically conservative asswipes who really enjoyed having the world to themselves during 2020 and parts of 2021. They got to go to all these empty restaurants, fly for cheap, the roads were empty, etc. It was like the anti-rapture in the best way for them. Now all the smarmy libs have re-appeared, and they're seething with anger, and they have the emotional intelligence of a masturbating monkey, so they're flinging shit everywhere.
(On why there's more road rage now.)
conservative asswipes who really enjoyed having the world to themselves during 2020 and parts of 2021
I don't know about this. I didn't get the impression they were having a good time. I thought they were furious about not being able to get haircuts, manicures, pedicures etc
15: Also perpetually in danger of asphyxiation due to masking.
Fair point. But they are capable of whining relentlessly then and resenting it when sane people start to socialize again now.
I think at least part of it is that more people became delivery drivers and are aggressive because that's how you make it pay.
I think 13 is plausible, with the proviso that some of them are otherwise apolitical car-obsessed assholes (the vroom-vroom types).
That graph with the downward motor accidents deaths intersecting with the upward firearm deaths always gets me: some of the best and worst aspects of our society walking past each other.
Maybe people are driving fast because they are afraid of getting shot?
That may just be an artifact of changing classification of shootouts while driving.
Obviously, if no one gets hit by a bullet directly, you need to count it as a traffic death regardless of how many shots hit the car.
Also striking in that graph: the big upswing in drug overdoses.
Oh wait. That's just a linear connection to the upswing in 2020. Something happened in 2020.
I though the fentanyl contamination/lacing uptick actually started in earnest in 2019?
The fentanyl is in drugs, not Ernest.
Anyway, the moral of the story is that wiping down your groceries caused drug overdoses.
Maybe we're focusing on the wrong part of "drug overdose and poisoning".