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When it turns out auto deaths drop, does that mean the shutdown goes on for ever? What will you say to the family of the first auto crash victim after the shutd
by tedunangst 7y ago
When it turns out auto deaths drop, does that mean the shutdown goes on for ever? What will you say to the family of the first auto crash victim after the shutdown is lifted?
- rsfern 7y agoI do think it’s important to consider the pros and cons of any given policy, but I think this comparison is a bit extreme. There are about 35k car crash deaths in the US each year [0]. I’ve seen estimates for total infection rate all over the map. Conservatively (?) if 30% of the US population is eventually infected and the fatality rate is 1%, that’s 1 million people, and basically two orders of magnitude larger for a comparable (?) time period. If we don’t do more than we currently are to limit transmission, these figures don’t seem that implausible. Auto deaths are still a huge problem, but we can take more targeted action like improving transit coverage. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_...
- cjhopman 7y agoFor some more perspective: Italy has 3,333 deaths from car accidents per year. Currently 0.04% of Italy has confirmed covid-19. They have 1809 deaths from it.