Horowitz: New study: Millennials think their risk from COVID-19 is exponentially more than the true threat

New study: Millennials think their risk from COVID-19 is exponentially more than the true threat
By Daniel Horowitz. July 14, 2020

Four researchers published a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research studying people’s perceived personal health risks associated with COVID-19. The most striking result of their survey of 1,500 Americans from May 6 to May 13 is that the younger the age of the respondent, the more the individual seemed concerned about the virus being deadly to them – the exact inverse of the true threat assessment of the virus.
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When asked by the four researchers, who hail from Harvard, Oxford, and Università Bocconi, out of “1,000 people very similar to you” how many would die from COVID-19 over the next nine weeks, the median estimated guess by respondents aged 18-34 was 20, or 2%. In other words, the average Millennial thought that 2% of everyone like them would die within nine weeks from the virus. In contrast, in contrast, the respondents aged 70 years or older, which is exponentially more at risk, asses their risk of dying at about 1%.

What is the infection fatality rate (IFR) for younger people? The CDC estimates a 0.05% IFR for everyone in the age cohort of 0-49. Other estimates based on Spain serology tests broken down by age suggest an even lower IFR for those 18-49.

The article goes on to point out that people in this age group routinely engage in behaviors that are stastically far more likely to result in death or injury. But they don't consider it a big deal, in large part because they don't have social media constantly hyping the dangers of these activities.

Which pretty much confirms what I've been saying for quite a while. The media and social media is massively exaggerating the deadliness of this disease and people are basing life-affecting decisions on these inflated figures.

Exaggerating a disease and demonizing those who disagree with the exaggeration may get you more viewers and it might even convince some people to change who they vote for in November, but it is ultimately destructive to the entire population that these articles claim to be trying to help.