7 times is quite a lot more. That's like saying a Porsche is a bit more than a T...

cm2187 · on Feb 26, 2020

7 times a minuscule number may still be a minuscule number.

A 30yo male has a 0.18% probability to die that year. It's a small enough number that it is irrational to worry about it [1].

[1] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

scarmig · on Feb 26, 2020

Would you say a 61yo male is significantly more likely to die than a 30yo male?

Because that's the age where the actuarial table is 7x worse for a man than at 30.

A couple hundred thousand dead here, another hundred thousand dead there, and soon we're talking about big numbers.

jakeinspace · on Feb 26, 2020

But a .2% mortality rate from COVID-19 means that if you're in your 20s and catch it, your odds of dying this year will have more than doubled! You think that's not worth worrying about? On a global scale that is millions of potential deaths beyond the prior statistical expectation.

short_sells_poo · on Feb 26, 2020

Relative differences can be completely meaningless if the absolute numbers are tiny. The chance of you being hit by a meteorite in your lifetime is 1 out of 700'000 and being bitten by a shark is 1 out of 8'000'000. Does that mean you should worry more 10 times more about being hit by a rock from space?

No, both are such small numbers that you shouldn't worry about either.