Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire.
This week marked the 20th anniversary of the Twin Towers attack. I remember it so well. It was the summer of my last year at Oxford and I was temping at a local investment management company. I went home to my parent’s house for lunch and we watched it unfold on the TV.
2,996 people died in those attacks.
There were many known knock-on effects from September 11th – travelling through airports was never the same again, for example. There were also some unknown effects that happened because of the way our human mind works.
A high-damage but low-probability event like September 11th is called a ‘dread risk’. Almost 3,000 people died at once in a hugely visceral attack. That lives in our minds as a much higher risk than, for example, car accidents or preventable medical errors (between 44,000 and 98,000 people die every year in US hospitals because of documented and preventable medical errors).
I don’t love flying, but I always tell myself that the most dangerous part of the journey is the car journey at either end. Rationally, I know the risk of flying is very low.
In the days and months that followed September 11th people were scared to get on planes. People took to driving in the US instead, thinking they were safer.
In the year following the attacks interstate highway travel increased and an estimated 1,500 extra Americans died on roads in an attempt to avoid the fate of those killed by the terrorists.
That is no small number.
We humans are horrible at assessing risk. Our brains haven’t changed much in 100,000 years – the risks we faced then are very different to the risks we face today. We are rarely in a life-or-death situation where we have to react instantly. Generally we have time to consider the information and develop a rational response. We don’t though of course! We let the irrational, quick thinking side of our brain override the rational, thoughtful side.
We are more likely to overweight the probability of something happening if we can remember having heard about it (terrorist attacks and shark attacks – the ‘dread’ risks). We underweight the probability of something happening that is rarely reported (death by heart disease or even car crash). This is called the availability bias.
We also overweight risks that we don’t perceive ourselves to have control over – getting on a passenger plane versus driving yourself to the airport.
This takes me onto COVID and the current perception of risk, particularly in the Cayman Islands where we have been COVID-free for the past 15 months. Our assessment of the risk posed by COVID maybe skewed by the availability bias – it’s the only thing in the news. We may also not perceive ourselves to have control over it (although to a large degree we do – get the vaccine and wear a mask).
Whereas in other parts of the world constant exposure to COVID has meant people have become familiar with the risk and therefore the consequences might have started to be discounted, we haven’t had that here. It’s new, and it feels unknown (we hate anything unknown).
Our natural human biases are combining to produce what we could call a mild hysteria.
Let’s try, if we can, to bring some rational thinking in here, putting aside the biases that plague us.
The vaccine has been available to us for months – hopefully you have had it.
If you are vaccinated you can still get COVID – it’s called a ‘breakthrough’ infection. Data shows that approximately 1 in 900 vaccinated people had breakthrough infections. Most of these cases were mild or with no symptoms at all. The odds of getting COVID once vaccinated are lower than the odds of being killed in a pedestrian accident. About 1 in 17,000 of those vaccinated people needed to be hospitalised. In total around 1 in 83,000 vaccinated people have died from COVID. You are more likely to die from a hornet, wasp or bee sting, or from a sharp object.
If you haven’t been vaccinated your chances of dying of COVID are much much higher (somewhere between 11 and 25 times higher). More than 99% of people who have recently died in the US were unvaccinated. Luckily the majority of adults in Cayman (somewhere close to 90%) have been vaccinated.
There is another risk that the vaccinated need to consider. That risk is that all the unvaccinated people fill up the hospital and prevent you from getting medical attention should you have an accident or get diagnosed with a preventable illness that needs treatment. I think this is a valid fear, but it’s too early to worry about it (and our vaccination rate should protect us).
The next question is ‘but what about our kids’?
In the UK they have put the risk of a child dying of COVID at 1 in 500,000 (compare that to the 1 in 83,000 chance of a vaccinated adult dying). In the US, children have accounted for less than 0.25% of all COVID deaths. As at the end of July 358 children have reportedly died of COVID in the US, since the pandemic began.
To put that into context, around 800 children drown each year in the US, around 600 die in car accidents (most are not wearing a seatbelt), and over 3,700 teenagers attempt suicide each DAY.
I have three children and I worry about them every day. I worry about whose car they go in, I worry about them cycling on the road, I worry about them falling out of trees (yes, they spend time climbing trees), I worry about what they put into their bodies, I worry about the impact of social media on their mental health as they enter their teens. When they were little I worried constantly about the swimming pool and the ocean.
I have never once worried about them getting COVID* (and we travelled this summer).
My husband and I are vaccinated and that is the best protection for our kids (who are too young to get vaccinated themselves) – the majority of children hospitalised in the US have unvaccinated parents.
Being afraid is ok, we just have to be careful that we don’t jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. The best way to do that is make sure when your anxiety gets the better of you, take time to take control of the irrational side of your brain with the logical, thoughtful side of your brain. Remind yourself of the facts and figures, get the vaccine and put on a mask.**
Georgie
georgie@libertywealth.ky
*My three children are healthy with no underlying conditions, and I am so grateful for that.
**I will continue to take meetings with clients in person, in my office. The room is big, we can space out, and I will of course comply with any government mandate around masks. Until it’s mandated I will take my cue from you, wearing one if you choose to.