The government should get out of the way of people making their own risk assessments and proceeding accordingly. Equal misery should not be the norm or the lowest common denominator.
Reformatted, emphasis mine:
Perhaps regional responses and attitudes about the continuing shelter-in-place can be explained, in part, by some startling numbers.
- In New York State you have a roughly 1/16,390 chance of dying in a car accident in any given year (using numbers from a few years ago). So far, your chances of dying of Covid-19 in NYS are an arresting 1/1072, or roughly 16X WORSE than dying in a car accident.
- In Texas, by comparison, your chances of dying in a car accident are much worse at 1/7820, but your chances of dying of Covid-19 (again, so far) are a very remote 1/58,824. Driving a car in Texas, a risk we take every day, is roughly 7X more dangerous than the Covid.
Again, so far… None of this is to say that any given policy was the wrong approach (and, in any case, one can never derive “what ought” from “what is,” a basic precept lost in most public commentary just now). It might suggest, however, why civil impatience to loosen some restrictions is growing at different rates in different places.
In 2018, NH had 136 car crash fatalities. As of yesterday, NH has had 53 deaths attributed to COVID-19. with the (discredited) IMHE model projecting a total of 70 deaths by August 4). Remember close to half (if not more) of NH deaths due to this epidemic are attributable to those in long term / aged nursing homes.
SideNote: Is anyone else getting frustrated that the State of NH’s administration on reports “60+” instead of having more granular numbers (e.g., 60s, 70s, 80s) as well as those with comorbidities that may have been the actual death reason (with the coronavirus simply being the accelerator?).
So it is more dangerous to drive in NH.
(H/T: Instapundit)
UPDATE: if you want to see the top 50 ways Americans die, here’s some info from CBS News.
