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Vaccinated Americans more likely to die from a lightning strike than Covid (washingtonpost.com)
12 points by throwkeep 1780 days ago
5 comments

- 41 lightning deaths per year in the USA [1] out of 328M people. 41/328M = 1.25e-7

- 1,263 covid deaths in the USA out of 163M vaccinated [2]. 1263/163M = 7.75e-6 and it's not even August.

Seems wrong, by more than (vaccinated=1263/163M)/(lightning=41/328M) = 62x. Or am I missing something?

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/06/08/us-weather...

[2] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/health-departments/bre...

No, you pegged the piece properly.
Your second numerator should be COVID deaths of vaccinated people, not total COVID deaths.
Well there are more thunderstorms this year, in Ohio at least. Even brick walls are getting destroyed by them.
In 2021 there were no lightning deaths in the US as of June [0]. This stat compares the lifetime odds of death from lightning [1] to several months of covid data.

0 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/06/08/us-weather...

1 - https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/all-injuries/preventable-death-o...

Yes the author of this article seems not to know statistics very well and is comparing apples to oranges, and why did wapo let it get published with such glaring wrong logic. Being an opinion piece doesn’t mean throw out all standards.
3 deaths as of 7/20/2021 - https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-fatalities . The first was on June 9th, one day after your [0].

2021 has had an uncommonly low number of deaths. The same link says the 10 year average is 25 fatalities per year, and on average about 7 by the end of July.

Funnily enough, one of the reported SAEs for the original Moderna trial was a (non-fatal) lightning strike. Obviously, this was nothing to do with the vaccine, but Moderna did have to declare it.
Unlike me, who is unvaccinated. And in rather have a lighting strike hit me in the head than take that vaccine. 100%.
What facts do you use to justify that risk calculation to yourself? Or is it more of an “ick” factor?
I love how the burden of proof is apparently on the people who don't want to take the highly experimental rushed to market treatment that is making its manufacture (and those in government who are linked to said manufacturers) rich. I swear it only took 5 years to convert everybody from "don't trust the gov" to "blindly trust the government!"
Is Covid a fake virus?

It’s a choice between getting Covid and getting the vaccine. It’s only a matter of time before one gets Covid if one isn’t vaccinated.

The only caveat is with the delta variant and whatever next even more virulent variant comes along due to the mutations that occur as the virus continues to spread freely (due to lack of vaccines induced herd immunity), vaccinated people may get it without a booster. But So far data shows the breakthroughs are hospitalized at just a fraction of the rate as unvaccinated.

In a world where Covid wasn’t doesn’t exist, of course taking the shot makes no sense. But Covid is like getting all the proteins in the shot, plus thousands of extra ones from the live virus trying to infect all your cells.

If one is hesitant of the vaccine, one should be 1000x scared of Covid. All the concerns I’ve heard people express about the shot are 1000x more applicable to actual Covid. That’s what doesn’t make sense to me about the people concerned about the vaccine, if they evaluated Covid consistently it seems that there would be no question of whether to be vaccinated or not.

I’m legitimately confused why people with concerns about the vaccine don’t have the same concerns about Covid, but instead assume the best about Covid while assuming the worst about vaccines. Why do people do that?

I am vaccinated, but I don't understand this reaction to the unvaccinated.

Unless the commenter above is much older than typical HN demographics, if they get covid they will likely get a cold and then be fine. This the overwhelmingly most likely outcome.

The idea that catching this disease is some great event is just media conditioning.

For the vast majority of people it is a cold. Sometimes it's a bad cold. You know, like the kind we used to get every few months in the before times?

This view point does not account for the harmful effects of spreading the disease to other potentially more vulnerable populations.

Vaccines are not solely for the benefit of individual, but also the population of which the individual belongs.

> Unless the commenter above is much older than typical HN demographics, if they get covid they will likely get a cold

And apparently long term brain damage according to several large studies published in the last few months. It's not exactly a secret that death isn't the only measurable consequence of the virus.

And it's not like the people who _are_ older than the HN demographic are out there getting sick by licking doorknobs and wombats. COVID is being spread to them by the decisions of people who are unwilling to take the harm of spreading the virus seriously.

You appear to be a little confused about the terminology. Most of us will eventually get exposed to SARS-CoV-2 (the virus). Only a subset of those will get COVID-19 (the disease). The available vaccines greatly improve your odds of avoiding COVID-19 even if you do get infected.
In other news, unvaccinated Americans more likely to die from a lightning strike than Covid.