I apologize if this is explained somewhere, but I have a question about this statement;
The key takeaway is that a 1% chance of having COVID, which is about the base rate of COVID in the US, costs older relatives a few days of life if you pass it on to them.
Is that an average loss of life over a large population of people exposed?
So in an oversimplified example, if the only effect of the behavior is 1 in 1000 older relatives would die 1000 days earlier than they would otherwise, the average loss is one day of life?
If that is the meaning, I am not sure I find that helpful. Nobody would notice the loss of one day. But in reality, nobody is losing one day. 999 people lose nothing, and one person loses 3 years. I do not want to be the cause of that, even if the odds are low.
I apologize if this is explained somewhere, but I have a question about this statement;
Is that an average loss of life over a large population of people exposed?
So in an oversimplified example, if the only effect of the behavior is 1 in 1000 older relatives would die 1000 days earlier than they would otherwise, the average loss is one day of life?
If that is the meaning, I am not sure I find that helpful. Nobody would notice the loss of one day. But in reality, nobody is losing one day. 999 people lose nothing, and one person loses 3 years. I do not want to be the cause of that, even if the odds are low.
This seems like a pretty paradigmatic case of scope insensitivity.