Hi, I'm Dan Pramak, and welcome to Axios Recap, presented by Google.

Today is Thursday, December 3rd.

Stimulus hoax are up, slightly, jobless claims are down, slightly, and we're focused on the faces of COVID.

More than 100,000 Americans are now hospitalized with coronavirus infections, a new record.

And all expectations are that the number will continue to rise, particularly given last

week's Thanksgiving holiday travel and gatherings.

What that's going to mean is a lot more death.

Yesterday, America lost 2,762 people, bringing the total pandemic toll to over 272,000 per the CDC.

That's more than the entire population of Des Moines, Iowa, or of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, or Toledo, Ohio. By now, though, we've all become a bit numb to

these numbers. 100,000 becomes 200,000, and soon will be 300,000. Another headline, and we move on.

But what must, simply must, be remembered is that these people are people, not statistics,

parents, children, best friends, colleagues, the most important person in someone else's life.

So today we wanted to speak with Alex Goldstein, a former political spokesman who in March created

a Twitter feed called Faces of COVID, which tells the world more about the specific lives lost,

the stories behind the stats. That conversation in 15 seconds. We're joined now by Alex Goldstein,

the creator of Faces of COVID and former spokesperson for Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick

and Congresswoman

Ayanna Presley. So, Alex, why did you start Faces of COVID?

I started it right really at the outset of the pandemic as things were starting to look

really bad here in Boston and much of the East Coast. And initially, it was really about my

own personal catharsis. I was finding myself being kind of almost numbed out to the horror of the statistics that were

coming across the airwaves early on.

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