MICHAEL TACKETT
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — We are becoming a nation of amateur actuaries, calculating the risk of restarting our lives.
Can we go outside? Can we go back to work? Can we go to a restaurant or bar? Can we go to the beach? Can our children go back to school? Can we visit grandma?
The questions have an infinite run. The answers are less a product of math and hard science than one of highly variable, and often emotional assessment of the benefit relative to the cost.
We know the odds of pre-coronavirus daily living. The lifetime chances of getting struck by lightning in the U.S. is about 1 in 180,000. Of dying in a car crash, about 1 in 106. Dying from heart disease? About 1 in 6. Dying from a storm? 1 in 54,699.
Those statistics, drawn from the National Safety
