I thank you for the very diligent follow up post, bmw.
To be clear - I steadfastly oppose any governmental mask mandate for folks who have been fully vaccinated, or if not fully vaccinated, have otherwise been confirmed as possessing sufficient antibodies.
I also agree that for those who have been vaccinated *and* are not immuno-compromised, the risk of suffering severe illness from COVID are very, very low and the risk of suffering death is even lower. All the more reason to get the vaccine!
For me, it all boils down to cost-benefit analysis and degree of inconvenience. Driving a car, or riding in a car, is necessary for many folks to complete essential daily tasks.
(Although not pertinent to the specific point you & I are debating, the number of
unvaccinated, I might add, who have suffered fatal outcomes at the hands of COVID far exceeds your 38,000 annual car fatalities figure.)
I would be curious to know how many of the 38,000 annual vehicular deaths are suffered by those at fault versus innocent victims.
Are you suggesting that the more inconvenient something is to someone that a higher risk of death is acceptable?
I would perhaps replace the term "inconvenient" with "costly," but yes, I am indeed essentially making that argument, especially if we are talking about oneself.
To make this an equal comparison, the Covid deaths have to be adjusted for the fact that not all of the population is vaccinated and for the fact that we only have 2/3 of a year's worth of data. The annual average would be 3,656 deaths. Then further adjusting for the fact that the AVERAGE vaccination rate over that 8 month span is about 40%, we can only analyze 40% of the vehicle-related deaths, so those numbers comparatively fall to 15,200 deaths.
Valid points, and great data, but I would add our road systems are much more static than dynamic and driving patterns evolve slowly over time. In other words, one knows what he or she is "getting into."
There is much more uncertainty regarding how COVID will morph and evolve, in large part because COVID-19 has only been in existence in North America since Q1 of 2020 or arguably very late 2019. I definitely hope the disparity you mention holds true over time or widens (not meaning I want more vehicular deaths, but rather, that I want fewer & fewer COVID-19 fatalities!). However, it is far too soon to use current data regarding COVID to make extrapolations as to what the future will hold with any high degree of confidence.
But there's one more variable to look at. How much does actually wearing that mask in public reduce your odds of catching Covid in the first place? If you go by the study that TCT was touting, that number is 9.3%. That means wearing a mask doesn't 100% mitigate your odds of catching Covid and dying, but rather only mitigates those odds by 9.3%.
Very fair question. Certainly, there were some shortcomings with regard to how the research was conducted. As such, I don't place a tremendous amount of stock in that 9.3% figure...yet.
At least several dozen other mask studies have been performed in the past. The NBC affiliate in Austin, KXAN, offers hyperlinks to 49 such studies on its web site.
Many of those other studies have shown greater mask efficacy.
Morgan Wallen is a piece of garbage.