I, like many others, have had a hard time gauging the risks associated with COVID-19. The   variables involved are complex and cover the risks to my i

The Easiest Way To Double Your Probability of Death This Year

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2021-09-08 15:30:03

I, like many others, have had a hard time gauging the risks associated with COVID-19. The variables involved are complex and cover the risks to my individual life, my community and the world at large. First, there is my risk of death, severe illness or long covid, which are heavily influenced by my demographics and health history. Second, there is the risk that I could spread the virus to someone else who dies or has a severe case — and no decent person wants that hanging over their conscience for the rest of their life. And third, there is the risk that I participate in a prolonged spread of the virus that leads to the evolution of more dangerous variants of the virus.

Across the globe, individual responses to SARS-CoV-2 have spread across a broad spectrum, ranging from absolute terror in some groups — which is entirely justifiable in the highest risk groups — to other groups who deny the dangers associated with the virus altogether. Some people even go so far as to claim that the pathogen doesn’t exist at all; I recently spoke with an ICU nurse in the Midwest who told me that she treated a patient who continued to claim that COVID-19 was a hoax all the way up to their death from the disease. Talk about a bad case of cognitive dissonance. On the other side of the spectrum, I know fully vaccinated people that are young and healthy who are still living in a self-imposed bubble.

This wide-ranging individual response encouraged me to try and see the risk of COVID-19 from a different angle. Is there some kind of solid middle ground to hold? Is there a way to gauge our level of risk in a way that helps us make better decisions? This article is my attempt at doing just that. I will focus on the individual threat each of us faces from COVID and attempt to benchmark it by comparing it to the risk of well-known activities. Now, I’m no doctor; I’m just a lowly MPH, so go easy on me. Some of the numbers I cite below are from scholarly journals but other data sets — particularly the risks associated with extreme sports — were much harder to verify. Still, I think it makes for interesting fodder.

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