In an offhand remark that I can only imagine was a hyperbolic rhetorical flourish, someone recently wrote here that one had “a better chance of being hit by lightning than dying of coronavirus.”
According to the National Weather Service, lighting kills an average of 49 people a year in the US.
https://www.weather.gov/safety/lightning-victims
According to the database maintained by Johns Hopkins, 176,809 have died of COVID-19 so far this year in the US.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html
So ignoring the fact that the COVID-19 data only includes the first 8 months of the year, a simple mathematical calculation indicates that one is actually 3608 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than lightning in the US.
There are, however some common features of both natural hazards. Specifically, there are things that people can do (or avoid doing) that lowers their risk. Ultimately, of course, death is inevitable, but most of us prefer to take reasonable steps to postpone it. It’s worth our time and effort to learn what these precautions are and apply them.
Stay safe out there, y’all!
Ed
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2020 08:36:32 -0400
From: Ed Beroset
Subject: calculating the odds