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In a crowded field, my least favourite COVID-19 minimisation troll tactic is the claim that "99.5% of people survive".
An angry thread.
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An angry thread.
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First, this ignores the other costs of COVID-19 infection, including #LongCovid. But let& #39;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.
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99.5% is (are?) not odds of survival that most people would take.
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99.5% survival is one chance in 200 of dying. What does 1 chance in 200 look like?
Let& #39;s start with board games.
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Let& #39;s start with board games.
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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& #39;s common enough that they made a rule for it, after all.
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Or consider Risk. You are defending. Your opponent throws three sixes. Oops. One chance in 216.
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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& #39;t affect you 99.5% of the time.
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Now let& #39;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.
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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.
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Think about 1,000 people accepting this deal. They& #39;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.
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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.
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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& #39;t want to take a 1 in 200 chance of dying, let alone a higher one.
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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& #39;t really care too much about that. If you get my drift.
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And 99.5% is just for your _first_ bout of COVID-19. We don& #39;t know how long immunity lasts, and just as important, we don& #39;t know if subsequent infections will be milder (better immune response) or worse (exacerbating previous organ damage that perhaps wasn& #39;t obvious).
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