In a crowded field, my least favourite COVID-19 minimisation troll tactic is the claim that "99.5% of people survive".

An angry thread.

/1

First, this ignores the other costs of COVID-19 infection, including #LongCovid. But let's pretend that the only outcomes are death or a full recovery.

99.5% is (are?) not odds of survival that most people would take.

/2

99.5% survival is one chance in 200 of dying. What does 1 chance in 200 look like?

Let's start with board games.

/3

In Monopoly, if you throw doubles (any doubles) three times in a row, you go to jail. One chance in 216 at the start of any turn. Anyone who has played Monopoly more than once has seen this. It's common enough that they made a rule for it, after all.

/4

Or consider Risk. You are defending. Your opponent throws three sixes. Oops. One chance in 216.

/5

Or think of something you do every day, and get wrong twice a year. Put your t-shirt on the wrong way round. Leave the keys on the counter when you go to get the car out. That sort of thing. Not once in a blue moon events, but they don't affect you 99.5% of the time.

/6

Now let's play a game. I offer you a deal. It can be a bottle of champagne, or your phone bill paid for a year, or your student loan debt wiped off, or your mortgage paid, or a massive yacht. You get that, but you roll three dice. If they all come up 6, you die, right there.

/7

What would I have to offer you for you to take that bet? I bet it would be a lot more than your student loan debt.

/8

Think about 1,000 people accepting this deal. They're gathered in a room. They step up to the stage, one by one. They take the envelope and roll the dice. 995 people get cheered. 5 get led away. A muffled shot can be heard from behind the curtain.

/9

99.5% seems to be the average number quoted by these trolls. For some people, the risk is a lot more than 1 in 200. And these are not just 90 year olds with dementia and cancer.

/10

About half of the 50-year-old population of most Western countries has a comorbidity that places them at higher risk. They have perfectly normal lives apart from their diabetes or hypertension. They don't want to take a 1 in 200 chance of dying, let alone a higher one.

/11

Non-white people also seem to be at higher risk, at least in Western countries. But I get the impression that a certain subset of the people telling us that "99.5% survival is fine" probably don't really care too much about that. If you get my drift.

/12

And 99.5% is just for your _first_ bout of COVID-19. We don't know how long immunity lasts, and just as important, we don't know if subsequent infections will be milder (better immune response) or worse (exacerbating previous organ damage that perhaps wasn't obvious).

/13

I don't know what governments should do about COVID-19. I don't think we can continue with lockdowns indefinitely, and perhaps we will end up having to live with it as best we can. That's not my point here.

/14

The virus is real, it's nasty, it's killing people, and common humanity ought to mean that we respect that. A majority of people in every country are doing their best to stay safe. The people who blithely wheel out the "99.5% will survive" argument can get in the sea.

/15 /end