When someone says they don't believe a disease is serious because "I don't know anyone who has been sick/died from ___",

I'll often reply "Do you know anyone who has won a Super Jackpot? No, then why do you play the lottery?"

Ultimately, this is a lesson in basic statistics

Let's start with how many people do you honestly think you "know"? As in, converse with frequently enough to learn about current events in their life?

Now...how many of those people divulge their personal medical information to you?

Me? I have maybe 30 people I could include...

Now let's expand to your social media circle, casual acquaintances, neighbors, distant relatives, etc...

Now, how many of those people divulge personal medical information that you would know about?

I bet most of us could realistically include <200 people in this group...

OK - let's use #COVID in the United States as an example for this exercise.

31 million cases to date out of 328 million people= ~10% have had positive testing

That's 1 out of 10 people, on average

562,000 deaths=0.17% of population

That's 1 out of 584 people, on average

If we assume that many of us truly "know" less than 200 people (well enough that they would divulge medical information), then on AVERAGE, we would each know:

20 people who have had #COVID19

No one who has died from it

This exercise takes MANY liberties, especially how averages don't tell the full story...not to mention extremes at both ends.

However, the point I am trying (poorly, no doubt) to get across:

Prevalence matters when discussing personal experience with ANY disease.

Just because you or I don't personally know someone who has ____, it doesn't mean it isn't real or even severe.

Simply put, this only reflects our VERY limited personal interactions, which must be compared with the overall population & prevalence of whatever is being discussed.