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Comment by ducttape12 | Hacker News Reader

But couldn't the same thing apply to traffic deaths? In 2018, in the US, over 36,000 people died in car accidents. That's higher than coronavirus deaths, so logically shouldn't we all stay off the roads and quit going to work? Wouldn't that have the same impact?

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-autos-traffic-deaths-...

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Sure, and I think it is a good comparison in that the numbers are large and it is unexpected. The difference is that we as a society have come to regard them as an acceptable risk. In addition, they are isolated, so while they are common, the odds of 10 people you know dying in a car crash are very low. With a virus, an entire office could get sick or even worse an entire school. For me this is my primary fear. My kids entire school gets infected and kids start dying or being hospitalized in large numbers.

This also adds to the economic impact. Its the clustering aspect of this that drives fear and uncertainty.

It is disingenuous to compare last years total traffic deaths to total coronavirus BEFORE coronavirus has spread. The coronavirus deaths haven't happened yet.

If I told you due to a newly discovered automotive manufacturing defect, 2% of cars would explode and kill the occupants, and 20% of drivers would be hospitalized in serious condition, that wouldn't be worthy of being on the front page of every newspaper?

Something like traffic deaths - which occur fairly routinely and regularly - are probably already factored in by large companies (i.e. companies expect N people to leave every year, of which M might be unexpected deaths).

The new coronavirus hasn't been accounted for yet by our society, and probably can't be accounted for given that we don't know how far it will spread and how many will die.

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