Last Christmas peak chart position

The observation that a 1984 Wham! song's chart revival moves in parallel with America's furniture tip-over injuries is the kind of fact one should probably not share at parties. And yet here it is. George Michael, somehow, is implicated.

Both metrics moved in 2020 for pandemic-adjacent reasons. Last Christmas climbed back up holiday charts as streaming made every December its best chart performance yet, while furniture tip-over ER visits rose as locked-down families spent unprecedented time at home with children and new WFH furniture. One is the annual triumph of nostalgia; the other is the cost of sharing a room with your children for twelve straight months.

So the correlation is a Christmas carol playing over a hospital admissions chart, which is a bleak image if you let it settle. Both numbers are what being home did to 2020. The song, at least, kept rising.