We seniors had our moment

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According to the Oxford University-run QCovid Risk Calculation, a 60-year-old man with no risk factors has a 2.3% chance of dying from Covid after testing positive. For an 80-year-old man, it’s 16 percent (one in six).

But the odds of falling in love with Covid at a young age are very slim. For a healthy 19-year-old, the risk of dying after a positive test drops to just 0.01 percent. According to QCovid, that teen’s risk of contracting the virus in the first or second wave and then dying was literally one in a million.

The chance of dying of one in a million is called a “micromort” – a very small unit of measure useful for comparing the risks of different daily activities.

A trained scuba diver stares at five micromurts with each dive, while a single sky dive will cost you eight micromorts, for example.

On the more mundane side of life, driving 230 miles is equivalent to one micrometer. This is the same small danger that our 19-year-old son is escaping from Covid. On the other hand, his 80-year-old grandfather has a 1,000 times greater risk of contracting COVID-19.

The 19-year-old would need to drive 230,000 miles – the equivalent of hitting the globe nine times – to log the same number of small outlets on a road trip.

None of this to reduce the risk of Covid. The Omicron wave, which is rapidly enveloping the country, is very dangerous. Unless this alternative turns out to be much less lethal than the ones before it, it’s a good bet that hospitals across the country will find themselves overwhelmed in the next three to four weeks.

If the worst happens, there will be no doubt in calls for another shutdown. People will say that advanced democracy cannot function without a functioning health system, and you might agree with them — especially if you think you might have a call to use it.

But we had nearly two years to fix the roof. If Covid overwhelms the NHS this winter, it will be because we haven’t done enough to expand its capacity or control the virus or to ensure that all adults (not just some) are double-stabbed and reinforced.

American physician Dr. Anthony Fauci called young people “spread vehicles” and they are already carrying the virus. But can we really shut down their schools and universities again in order to protect ourselves given the damage we know will happen?

I wouldn’t say no. In the spirit of Picasso, our elders embraced Freedom Day, thus choosing to live with the virus rather than suppress it.

If that turns out to be a basic jump (450 micrometres) more than a nice walk in the park, we’ll have to live with it, or not.

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