A friend of mine thinks it's too risky to go out, and asked me to do the maths for him. I did: ft.com/content/176b9b…
You need to make a lot of assumptions and guesstimates - too many. I wish the data were better (@amymaxmen has a great recent piece on this in @NatureNews). But there is enough information to make educated estimates.
In the UK, according to last week's ONS population survey, there were 22-76 infections per million people per day in England, with a best guess of 44. If you behave like a typical English resident for one day (no, I don't know what that means either) then...
...feel free to apply the 44 in a million daily chance of infection to yourself. For my friend - in his early 60s - the chance of death, given infection, is about 1%. Chance of lasting harm also seems about 1%. These are all best guesses...
So 2% of 44 in a million gives an almost-cliched one-in-a-million chance of death or lasting harm, for every day existing in the England of August 2020.
If you're 80 the risks are much higher. If you're 30 or 40 they're much lower.
If you're 80 the risks are much higher. If you're 30 or 40 they're much lower.
I was surprised at how low these numbers were. But it's a reminder of what the challenge now is: prevent a second wave. If these risks double and double and double etc... suddenly we're back to the nightmare of April.
PS My new book, "How To Make The World Add Up", will NOT teach you how to calculate your own covid risk. But I did have a chance to revise it to reflect the hard lessons the pandemic has taught me - and all of us - about respect for trustworthy data: timharford.com/books/worldadd…
PPS This piece went to press shortly before the new daily infection count increased overnight by 50% to around 1500. Normally I wouldn't worry about daily fluctuations, but given the experience in Spain & France I AM worried about that. We all need to be careful.
