The CDC reported a few months ago that the mortality rate for corona virus is .26%. We know it's lower than that due to the fact that there have been a significant number of false positives / errors / horse play in the numbers of cases reported. It is also lower due to the fact that not everyone whose had it knew they had it (non-symptomatic), nor did everyone who's had it report it! Noone knows for sure. I say it's .13% (half of .26% -- I've seen lower guesses), but for math's simplicity, I'm going to round to .1%, which equates to 1 in 1000. The average age of a corona death is 80 years old.
A more recent CDC report states that of those who have contracted and died from covid (and on average are EIGHTY years old), only 6% (of those 1 in 1000 and are eighty years old and can social distance and wear masks) had no underlying conditions. Folks, that's 1 in 16,667, and that's not taking into account the fact that not everyone will contract it!
Let's take a look at the odds of some other "ways to die":
Heart Disease and Cancer: 1 in 7
Chronic Lower Respiratory Disease: 1 in 28
Intentional Self-harm: 1 in 95
Unintentional Poisoning: 1 in 96
Motor Vehicle Crash: 1 in 114
Fall: 1 in 127
Assault by Firearm: 1 in 370
Car Occupant: 1 in 645
Pedestrian Incident: 1 in 647
Motorcycle Rider Incident: 1 in 985
Unintentional Drowning: 1 in 1,188
Exposure to Fire, Flames or Smoke: 1 in 1,498
Choking from Ingestion of Food: 1 in 3,461
Pedacyclist Incident: 1 in 4,486
Firearms Discharge: 1 in 6,905
Air and Space Transport Incidents: 1 in 9,821
Electric Current & Radiation: 1 in 15,212
Exposure to Excessive Natural Heat: 1 in 16,584
Contact with Sharp Objects: 1 in 38,174
I say we call a halt to EVERYTHING WE'RE DOING in our lives and dedicate ourselves to removing EVERY SHARP OBJECT ON THE PLANET!
Back on point though, we should definitely protect our great-grandparents. They are protected via social distancing and mask wearing, and those that wish to should continue to use those same measures. But how will their lives change in any way if the rest of the world's people return to living their lives normally?
We should definitely NOT be stealing away the lives of our youth in order to bolster by some unknown amount, probably small, the effective aforementioned protective measures already in place! Everyone else going back to full life doesn't take social distancing and masks away from the vulnerable!
Moreover, for my part, if I were that age, I would not want that. I would want my grandchildren to live their lives to the fullest, as I hope I will have at that point, and social distancing and mask wearing precludes that. And it's not just the life they don't get to live. There are MANY other consequences associated with the measures society has had foisted upon it. Depression, abuse, unemployment, loss of hope, just to name a few.
In summary, the vulnerable among us are being protected, and should continue to be. Those that have virtually NO RISK of dying from covid, and those who wish to live their lives to the fullest knowing that the risk of dying should they contract it is very small, should be allowed to return to life as normal.
Billions of years of life have been lost already.
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