60,000 Americans die from the flu every year. About 40,000 die in car accidents, 20,000 die in homocides and 60,000 die from suicide. Meanwhile, 600,000 die from cancer and 650,000 die from heart disease every year.
I think if those numbers were mentioned alongside any projected COVID-19 death rates, it would cause us all to settle down a bit.
But the issue is that deaths from the virus could be in addition to those figures. It isn't a trade off.
True, these are big numbers and they represent, at least in part, additional deaths, BUT if you look at the probability of any one individual dying from COVID-19 out of a total population of 330,000,000 it is still less than 1%. That's not to say that each death isn't a tragedy for the deceased's family and friends.
In round numbers the probability of a random individual dying from COVID-19 looks something like this, assuming that I got the numbers and division right.
200,000 out of 330,000,000
600 out of every 1,000,000
60 out of every 100,000
6 out of every 10,000
1 out of every 1,650
What I don't understand is how a densely packed country like China could have so many fewer cases and deaths.
At this rate, the NYC metro area with 20,100,000 residents could see a death toll from COVID-19 of around 12,000. I wonder how many people die in the NYC metro area on an average day from anything/everything other than COVID-19?
