And we'll finish off on the Brinler Show today with your calls kind of segwaying out of

that conversation.

Listeners, what aspects of everyday life have not returned to normal since the start of

the COVID-19 pandemic for you to 1, 2, 4, 3, 3, WNYC?

And we ask because we've just hit what the New York Times is describing as, and maybe

you saw this article in the last day, a positive COVID milestone.

The number of people dying every day from any cause is no longer historically abnormal.

In other words, there are no longer excess deaths occurring in the United States.

And at this moment in New York City, we're averaging about one death from COVID per day,

according to the city health department.

What a far cry from April 2020, of course, the peak of the pandemic, where the city saw

more than 800 deaths in one day, or even, and maybe more relevantly to our current mindsets,

at the start of this year, January of this year, when the average was 30.

COVID deaths a day in New York City, now it's one really meaningful progress.

And that number of people dying every day in the United States is no longer historically

abnormal or another way to put that.

We have the same number of deaths per day in the United States now as if COVID was not

a thing.

And that doesn't mean that the pandemic is over, but it certainly means that there's been

meaningful, meaningful progress this year, and at least with respect to deaths, which

doesn't address long COVID, and other things, the rates are weighed down.

So we ask, now that our death rate in this country has returned to a pre-pandemic normal,

...