Our approach to combating pandemics must shift to one that prioritizes prevention of human infections with zoonotic viruses, rather than focusing on rapid response once human infection is widespread.
I worry that if mass graves due to covid weren't enough to jolt near-unanimous support for protective measures, little else will. Would of course love to be proven wrong :(
edit: for the sake of clarity / not accidentally misrepresenting things, graves would be dug up there (as per the article) with/without covid, but the number of bodies being buried in that manner went to ~7x the amount during non-covid according to the article.
I think the frequency of deaths after infection would need to be an order of magnitude higher to move the needle on preventative measures. People just assume it won't effect them when 199 out of 200 people survive.
This measure of 199 out of 200 is the US population equivalent of 1,650,000 people.
So, roughly in the ballpark of how many COVID has killed thus far (best estimate I could find was a little over 1.2 million). Even that didn't really motivate people, unfortunately.
The excess death metrics is a solid track of what people don't want to talk about and forget as it's painful, but I guess is human nature to bury these hard things rather than push them to get fixed.