Covid-19, of course, has now been certified as the cause of death for 1.94 million people in the space of one year. That makes it worse in absolute terms than most influenza pandemics in history, except 1918’s; worse than the seven cholera pandemics of the 19th and early 20th century; but much less bad than HIV, 1918, or the Black Death and associated bubonic plague outbreaks. Every mentioned pandemic surpasses it in terms of deaths per capita, though — much of its high death toll is a consequence of the world’s population having grown from about 2 billion in 1920 to more than 7.8 billion today.