Will More People Die in Car Crashes This Year Than From Coronavirus?

We can't know yet, but even low estimates for virus casualties are far higher.

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The billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, emailed SpaceX employees Friday morning telling them that concerns over coronavirus were overblown.

In the email, which Buzzfeed obtained, Musk states: “As a basis for comparison, the risk of death from [coronavirus] is *vastly* less than the risk of death from driving your car home. There are about 36 thousand automotive deaths per deaths [sic], as compared to 36 so far this year for [coronavirus].”

Musk has made no secret of his thoughts about preparations made for the epidemic, calling panic about the virus “dumb” in a tweet last week.

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  1. Scott N.

    I do believe this has held the test of time quite well, though it's hard to gauge the actual numbers of the population infected, assuming that we don't have a bunch of people getting it twice. 200K+ dead and 7 million official positive cases (~2% of US population). Because of asymptomatic or low-symptom cases, the number of tested positives is quite a bit lower than the official case number, but this holds quite well.

    Great job on the reporting.

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    td12212

    Here's a good simulation showing why social distancing is so important:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/corona-simulator/

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    Michael Cochrane

    Most of your content on The Dispatch is great. However, what is the point of having a "Fact Check" column? It comes across as "click-baity" and doesn't seem to fit your stated model of providing content that doesn't needlessly polarize. Most so-called "fact check" media pieces are thinly-veiled polemics. When did you ever see a fact check piece that pronounced the fact being check "true?"

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      Jenny

      I see your point that a lot of them turn up the way you expect, but I don't think all of them have. Many are showing the nuance of the claim.

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    Bill Nelson

    Here is a slightly different take. Do we have medical professionals now setting public policy? Models are based on data, and the data in hand, today, is not that good. One must take care to listen to the medical professionals and try to discern how much of what they are saying, if any, might be to pump up their professional profile. The climatologist advocacy for climate change policy has done some damage to the scientific profession.
    That being said, this virus is different from others and clearly must be taken very seriously. Of great concern is that no one knows if it will go away, as does the flu virus, or if there will de development of a "herd" immunity after a period of time. And how fast it can spread, in South Korea one person who was infected and broke quarantine was estimated to have infected 1000 others. Now, that is an estimate, but scares the hell out of me.

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      Idontdocute

      It can survive on a surface for about 1-2 days at 98 degrees so I think it might survive spring in Texas. (5 days in body fluids as it has more resources)

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      Stephanie

      Yes, medical professionals typically set public policy in these situations. They're called public health professionals. Their specialty is communicable disease control. They do amazing work, and usually out of the spotlight, unless there's a crisis like this. Testing, contact tracing, quarantine or isolation measures, testing, case reporting and compiling biostatistics are all part of it. The measures being taken now are research/evidence-based and are SOP--not springing fullblown from the brain of Anthony Fauci.

      The graphs you see of disease incidence and prevalence--most commonly for influenza, and conspicuously missing for coronavirus except from other countries--are compiled by these professionals. The president and other politicians should not be making policy without the guidance of the top public health officials--the CDC.

      What we won't find out probably for a long time, is whether the CDC's initial fumbles (not accepting test kits offered by the WHO, and not pushing for as much testing as possible as soon as possible) were caused by their own internal judgment errors, or whether Mr. Trump interfered directly (or indirectly through subordinates) in the decisionmaking. Initially he was pushing the "hoax" narrative. He thought it was a trivial illness because he was listening to Rush Hannity. He wanted to keep his "numbers" low because he didn't want the markets to overreact. So I'm betting he did make his wishes known and there was no adult in the room to stop it being carried out that way.

      it's a perfect example of why apolitical public health authorities should set policy in infectious disease scenarios. As they did in the H1N1 and Ebola situations. As well as more localized scares, with meningitis outbreaks or tuberculosis control.

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    Octávio Lima

    At this point, we should not follow Mr. Musk's contention, but we should not panic either, but we must pray the projections are wrong and much fewer people will perish than driving their cars.

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    Pat Riot

    By following Trump's leadership--which they had no choice but to do--Republicans are betting their entire political future of their party on this virus turning out to being no big deal.

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    Man-Eating Cow

    Elon Musk reminds me of Linus Pauling. Not in a good way.

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    Visibly

    I don’t think most people understand how serious this is for society. My sister has COVIDA. She is a healthy middle aged woman. Now she has been more ill than anytime in her life. She has had serious breathing problems. She got it under a ski holiday to Austria, and the other people in her travel company of 11 have also tested positive, with two in hospital; one of them in coma! She was not submitted to hospital because she is better at home as long as she can manage without extra oxygen. A nurse calls in everyday. This is no flu. Even if only some few get it, it will be an enormous burden on the medical system. Fortunately I live in Norway with excellent safety net and free health care.

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      Bill Nelson

      The safety net and the cost have nothing to do with the effect of the disease. If you get the virus and you are at risk of death, then the cost matters not.

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        Visibly

        And by the way: I am on DNR2, i.e., do not rescusitate or rescue if I become seriously ill, and others with better chances should be prioritized.

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        Visibly

        It has everything to do with the disease! The fact that people understands that they will be well taken care of, independent of income and insurance, makes it so much easier for the government to provide advice

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          Bill Nelson

          I don't want the government's advice. I want my physician's advice. And I will make my own decisions.

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            Visibly

            You do understand that expecting all people in country contacting their GP will overwhelm the system? Or maybe you think that as long as you can afford it, it does not matter with everyone else. But we need unity now, not selfish decision. And we need our goverments to act in the best interest of all.

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      Octávio Lima

      Here is hoping she gets better soon, Visibly.

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        Visibly

        Thank you!

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    Earl King

    As a paramedic I see this a bit differently. My aggressive action would be to quarantine in place the elderly using SS roles. Bring them food and nursing to their doors. Hazmat all nursing home workers. The death rate is significant. This would allow the more rare younger cases to be more manageable. I admit I could be wrong but this to me makes more sense. Next. on Saturday during my shift what the ER was doing with cases. They were only testing dry cough and fever. Then they sent you home wearing a mask. You were told to isolate. If you were positive, they told you isolate for 14 days. Only call is respiratory difficulty becomes more serious. If you came in with reg cold or flu you are sent home as well. The trashing of the economy vs. isolating the elderly to protect them and the immune compromised may end up creating huge bankruptcies. Personal an small business. Close a restaurant for 1 or 2 months. It effects the vendors, the lease owner, the employees....Yea its easy to say we don't car about the bowling alley and their workers...but what about people who make a living selling cars, selling phones. Who live paycheck to paycheck.

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    Peter A

    160 million to 214 million viral infections...that would be 50-70% of the population. Has any virus done that. I am severely ignorant on these things, but that rate of infection makes all of these financial sacrifices seem foolish. If shutting everything down is worthwhile, we should be able to immediately discard these panic-inducing statistics...or we should panic.

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    1. Jeff Mitchell

      The Swine Flu infected 60.8M Americans. This is supposedly even more contagious for a number of reasons.

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        Peter A

        Thanks. Apparently it is 3 times as contagious, or more easily spread. I wonder if we had done the same shutdown for swine what impact it would have had.

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          Idontdocute

          I don't know how to do the whole paste click blue line link stuff (which is why God gives us grandchildren), but on Reuters graphics there is an article on coronavirus 2019 that is called Korean clusters dated 3/3/20. I do better with visuals.

          South Korea was very aggressive and very early with it's process and has about stopped the spread. The article graphically shows how one infected lady is the link to 1,160 infections in 11 days. She is case 31.

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      Octávio Lima

      One hopes the self-quarantine works, Mr. A. Yearly there are about 35 million cases of the flu in the US.

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        Peter A

        35 million cases without any of these measures.
        Why is the number of novel corona virus infections expected to be 4 to 6 times greater? Is the flu vaccine that successful?

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          td12212

          The flu vaccine is good unfortunately only 40-50% of the population get it each year.

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          Octávio Lima

          I think it is that successful, but I am no expert.

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            Peter A

            Thank you. It is an explanation. Not a happy one. 12-18 mos before the vaccine.

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      Jenny

      I'm just passing on what I've heard and claim no expertise. I don't think the social distancing measures are supposed to prevent us from ever getting the virus. The ideas is to spread out how many of us get it at a time in order to make sure our hospitals can handle the demand. Here is an article I read to get this information.

      https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-prevention/flattening-curve-for-covid-19-what-does-it-mean-and-how-can-you-help

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        Peter A

        Thank you. Commentary aside, my real question is the rate of infection. 50-70% of the population. Basically, we should all expect to get it at some point. The odds would be against avoiding it. Is that our expectation?

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          td12212

          Yes, that is the expectation. The only hope is that this infection rate is spread out over time such that severe cases can be dealt with in ICU's without running into resource issues as they are in Italy where they're about to start refusing service to folks over the age of 80 presenting with Covid-19 symptoms and giving preference to younger folks presenting with the same symptoms.

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            Idontdocute

            The problem is that ICUs still have all of the patients that are normally in need with strokes, heart attacks, traumas, etc. It wouldn't be refusal of service but the declining of aggressive treatment due to lack of resources not dependent on cause, Covid-19, or illness. Triage is triage.

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          Jenny

          That's beyond my paygrade and what I've read. Looking at the same numbers you have, how I'm thinking about it is that it's just a matter of time before my family gets it. I don't have any illusions about being able to hold back the tide, but maybe I can build a dam that will last for a while?

          I've got a lot of older people with other complications in my family, and I told them we will not be seeing them (other than to do the shopping for them) for a long time.

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            Peter A

            I pray these statistics are flawed, and I pray you and your family stay safe.

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About Alec Dent

Alec Dent is the culture editor and a staff writer for The Dispatch. He is a graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at UNC Chapel Hill, and previously oversaw The Dispatch's fact checking team.
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