For comparison, the National Safety Council calculates that as of 2019 the average American’s lifetime odds of dying in a car accident are about 1 in 107. (That of course includes reckless drivers and very cautious ones, as well as those who drive a lot and those who rarely do, and so forth.) The chance of choking to death on food? One in 2,535. The chance of being killed by a dog? One in 86,781. And the event we often treat as the epitome of an extremely rare incident of terribly bad luck — being killed by a bolt of lightning? The chance of that happening to any random individual, without incorporating other risk factors? One in 138,849.
Which means that, all else being equal, you’re roughly seven times more likely to die from being struck by lightning than you are to die from catching COVID-19 (in its current variants) if you’re fully vaxxed and boosted.
That is simply not a high enough risk to justify the kind of individual behavior we still see around us in many parts of the country every day.
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