Barr: Measuring Life vs Death with COVID-19
OPINION
BY TONY BARR
America has been traumatized by a large number of deaths from the COVID-19 virus. A better way to look at the pandemic is to focus on life versus death. The loss of years of life expectancy is a more rational metric, where life expectancy is defined as the mean number of years of life remaining at a given age. The life expectancy of a population is defined as the sum of the life expectancy of each individual in the population. In America, there are 0.006% of years of loss of life expectancy due to COVID-19 as of April 16, 2020. By the end of 2020, it may be 0.012%. This is an almost non-existent threat to our society. For this, we are sacrificing almost everything.
The explanation for this small loss of life expectancy from COVID-19 is that deaths are mainly found in a small population of health-compromised people. Because of their ages, this population has relatively few years of life expectancy left. The average age of death due to COVID-19 is 75.6 years. The loss of life expectancy due to motor vehicle accidents in 2015 was 0.104%. Motor vehicles are nine times more dangerous than COVID-19. Do we ban driving?
Our society places a high value on every life. We need to focus our attention on keeping the elderly and vulnerable out of harm’s way. When we achieve herd immunity, we will have broken the pandemic. A vaccine will significantly speed our nation’s herd immunity to COVID-19. We now have the data to support a strategy of protecting the elderly and vulnerable from COVID-19 while giving more freedom to the young and healthy.
Are we spending the national treasure wisely? Should we focus on those things that we can control and let go of things over which we have little control? Should we improve medical services, enhance education, build housing for the homeless, and solve other social problems with the trillions we are spending on keeping the economy closed?
Others express similar concerns: Dr. David Katz | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO).
Calculations and Data
All the data from 2015 can be found in the CDC, Census, and Social Security References below.
Total Population = 308,320,930
Total Life Expectancy = Sum over Ages (Life Expectancy * Population)
= 12,904,932,599
Average Life Expectancy = Total Life Expectancy / Total Population
= 12,904,932,599 / 308,320,930
= 41.9
Life Expectancy lost due to COVID-19 = Sum over Ages (Life Expectancy * COVID-19 Deaths) = 798056
Percent of Life Expectancy lost due to COVID-19 = (Life Expectancy lost due to COVID-19 /Total Life Expectancy ) * 100
= (79,8051 /1,288,642,966) * 100
= 0.00619%
Average Age of Death due to COVID-19 = Sum over Ages (Age * COVID-19 Deaths)/ Total COVID-19 Deaths = (2*5+10*7+20*76+30*463+40*1186+50*3338+60*8312+70*14447+80*18621+88*22543) / 68998
= 75.6
Life Expectancy Lost due to MVD = Sum over Ages (Life Expectancy * MVD)
=75*889+67*862+57*6937+48*6036+39*4887+30*5761+22*4633+14*2779+8*2286+4*1100
= 1336509
Percent of Life Expectancy lost due to MVD = (Life Expectancy lost due to MVD /Total Life Expectancy ) * 100 %
= (1,336,509 / 1,288,642,966) * 100 %
= 0.104%
References
Age and Sex Composition: 2010 – U.S. Census
https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-03.pdf
Actuarial Life Table – U.S. Social Security
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
Life Expectancy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
Provisional COVID-19 Death Counts by Sex, Age, and State 5/16/2020 –CDC
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Death-Counts-by-Sex-Age-and-S/9bhg-hcku
QuickStats: Death Rates* for Motor Vehicle Traffic Injury,† by Age Group — National Vital Statistics System, United States, 2015 and 2017
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6806a8.htm
Table 28 (page 1 of 4). Death rates for motor vehicle-related injuries, by sex, race, Hispanic origin, and age: United States, selected years 1950–2015
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2016/028.pdf
Top 10 uncertainties about the coronavirus
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Great article, and I agree 100% with it…but remember, facts and logic mean nothing
To a brain with mental illness…they (the left) don’t want to hear it!
What’s the real problem?
People have a spiritual problem. If you think you are the
Center of the universe, than you have a problem…Lost people have no idea what their real purpose in life is…they
are living in fear and have created a hell on earth for
themselves…they are listening to the deceiver.
What is
the truth? Pilate asked that of Jesus….what did Jesus say? “All those who believe
In the truth can hear my words”.
“The prince of the air” is
Who? He wants to control CO2 emissions. He is so deceitful
that he hides behind climate change…What a devious plan…
after all… don’t we all want to save the planet?
Can you
Think for yourself? Do you believe in nothing or evolution?
Did we come out of the primordial stew from an amoeba
Or is there Divine intervention? Oh…there is a god, there
Is a devil…there is pure evil and pure good and everything
In between.
Good triumphs over evil. Love wins over
Hate…what matters most on this spaceship earth? One
word: LIBERTY.
We are beams of light sent here to experience love and Jesus did what for us?…we will
Not forget. Love is the answer…forgiveness is the key to every
Door.
Given enough time, anything can happen…Beware the one world government.
Worry about your liberty, Mother Earth has time on her side.
Do you want the devils utopia or Jesus’?
God bless America!
This speaks to the silent homicides of patients who died because diagnostic services were made unavailable due to media hysteria and cowardice of elected officals at all levels.
Thanks to Tony for pointing out the criminal intent of using imaginary expectations for a financial and psychological lockdown that continues long after the Neil Ferguson models were debunked. We need to wonder why Gov. DeSantis continues to pretend Covid-19 is any different than a seasonal Flu.
However I disagree with Tony’s proposition that “a vaccine will significantly speed our nation’s herd immunity to COVID-19.”
Firstly, there will be no vaccine for covid-19 until sometime in 2021. This is hardly a speedy process since these viruses last about 2 years then disappear – just in time to make it falsely appear the vaccine provided the cure. Also, there’s no guarantee that a vaccine will do a better job than herd immunity powered by the human immune system at greater than 90%.
To compare, there has been no Flu vaccine (another coronavirus) that has achieved better than 40% effectiveness and sometimes as little as 10%. Then consider there is still no vaccine against the coronavirus called “the common cold”.
Vaccines are an arcane, 19th century attempt to hit a moving target where guesswork, masquerading as science, routinely fails to predict exactly which coronavirus strain will emerge as the threat for the following Flu season. Apply the history of the Flu vaccine to so-called Covid-19 to appreciate the failure of the questionable vaccine approach that also carries significant risk of mortality and disability from which Big Pharma has obtained 100% immunity from lawsuit liability since 1988. Today, dangerous vaccines can be manufactured with no financial consequence to Big Pharma profits.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/42/300aa-22
A more effective approach is the administration of oral medications like Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) that enhance the immune system in a matter of hours rather than months, especially in older patients with comorbidities. HCQ has already reported significant reversal of CV-19 symptoms in retrospective studies. Evidence also exists that HCQ oral medication is an effective prophylaxis for CV-19 exposure, especially in healthcare workers tending to patients. Double-blind studies are underway. Meanwhile, take a look at the evidence for hydroxychloriquine as a safe, off-label use of a 70 year old generic malarial drug – https://bit.ly/3eX9oPO