[DapperZoom]

Exactly. We all make these tradeoffs all the time and sacrifice lives for convenience and financial reasons. For example, close to 40K die in the us in traffic accidents every year. That number could be reduced to almost nothing with a 5 mph speed limit. of course, we've decided to take that calculated risk - the benefits of driving at speeds up to 65 or 70 outweigh the low number of annual deaths.

[mehrdadn]

The problem is the risks are orders of magnitude more than the "tradeoffs we make all the time", and clearly not enough people understand this. 40K/300M is 0.013%. It's nothing compared to coronavirus hospitalization or even death rates.

[treis]

That's an annual number while Coronavirus is one and done. A better comparison would be lifetime risk of dying in a car accident.

[mehrdadn]

Okay, feel free to slice and dice it however you want and share the results.

[umanwizard]

The lifetime risk of dying in a car accident is about 1% in the US, according to https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-mortalit... .

[mehrdadn]

And you're equating a lifetime chance with a < 1 year chance because... why? Is having a 1% chance of dying in the next hour the same to you as having a 1% chance of dying in the next 100 years? Is having a 99% chance of dying in the next hour the same to you as having a 99% chance of dying in the next 100 years?

[totony]

I'd assume when you apply that comparison to society at large it becomes close to the same thing.