Thread by @TheRealHoarse

Following up on my prior post about the delta variant and COVID hyperbole, I feel like folks need a better sense of scale around the stats they hear.

Let’s take my state, for example.

New Jersey averaged around 260 new reported COVID cases a day last week.

1/

New Jersey has reported that 98% of new cases are among people who unvaccinated.

At that rate, 5 of the 260 cases would be among people who are vaccinated.

Every day in NJ, 70x more people than that are injured or killed in a car accident.

2/

I’m going on a road trip to Iowa with my son in August.

A slew of people responded “Be careful. Vax rates are low in a lot of places.”

While they are *lower* than in NJ, so are their populations and densities.

3/

There isn’t a single state on our 12-state loop that has more unvaccinated people than my own home state.

Compared to Iowa, NJ has 3x as many unvaxed people and 20x the population density.

4/

There are more unvaccinated people in New Jersey - a state doing relatively well on vaccine adoption - than there are *total* in Iowa.

I am more likely to encounter someone unvaccinated right here at home.

5/

As a fully vaccinated person, there is a risk I could still contract COVID.

At present, based on currently available data, that risk is significantly lower than my risk of being injured in a car accident.

Again, I’m talking about me as a fully vaccinated person.

6/

Just because that risk is low, that doesn’t mean I should go have strangers cough into my mouth for fun.

I should take reasonable precautions just like I do when I drive:

I wear a seatbelt but not a NASCAR-grade restraint system.

I avoid bad conditions but don’t sell my car.
7

People with personal health reasons to be increasingly cautious should, of course, be more restrictive in what they do.

For me though, as a fully vaccinated person, the level of risk is on par with other daily dangers for which I adjust but don’t stop living.

8/

And if I were to develop a case of COVID at some point despite the odds, that still wouldn’t make the decision to go on living with reasonable adjustments wrong.

We drive despite the possibility of accidents. We fly despite the possibility of a crash. We swim despite drownings.

Everyone should make informed decisions about how to navigate having a life during COVID.

That starts with a context beyond surface-level stats tho.

I will encounter more potential COVID carriers in NJ this wk than I likely would in any of the places people warned me to avoid.

Get vaccinated.

Take what you feel are reasonable precautions.

There is nothing wrong with being more cautious than others.

But there is also nothing wrong with accurately understanding where the risk falls and responsibly going on living.

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