The problem with statistics is that I cannot take in what it means to lose 1,250,000 people each year to a curable illness. That’s more than a hundred thousand people a month. But how do I conceptualize such statistics? I’ve been in a stadium with a hundred thousand people, but I didn’t know each of their families. I didn’t know about the people they’ve loved, the heartbreaks they’ve endured, their constraints and encouragements, their frailty and resilience. I simply cannot fathom what 1,250,000 means.
