I wonder if it's easier to get negative departures of that magnitude than it would be to get positive departures ? I couldn't imagine Denver having a high temp of 106 in late October.
That seems odd that its been 12 years since the hottest temp occurred in August or later. Its not like August is much cooler than July so one would think it would be pretty common to have the hottest temp occur in August.
Lets keep some perspective here. There were about 330 million people in the US before this started, and there are still about 330 million people. Roughly 0.02% of the population has died.