I have some data that I want to share with all of you in this blog.
The USA has at least two major problems, but most have no idea or way to judge their significance. In a past blog, I proposed that we use "life years" as a means to analyze different social and political problems. Now, in the case of drug deaths and covid-19 death, I feel we need to look at these two problems in terms of "life years". Now, let's look at some numbers'
Based on data that I found in the internet, drug overdoes account for about 93,000 deaths per year. Rather that calling these "overdoes", I think we should look at them as murders. In the case of covid-19 the data show that about 500,000 have died per year. I know for a fact that this number is over estimated because people who die in auto crashes are counted as covid-19 if the autopsy shows that they had covid-19. I think that most of you know this. Doctors and hospitals get paid extra if the person has covid-19, so follow the money.
Now my calculations. I found that the average age of those who are murdered by drugs is about 30 years old and for covid-19 it is 67. Also in the case of those who die from covid-19, they mostly have other medical problems so that you would not expect them to have a normal life expectance, but here I am going to assume that they will live to age 80. If you calculate the life year lost by these two types of deaths you find that drugs cut 50 year off the average life while covid-1 cut 13 years off the average life. The comparable numbers are 4,650,000 for drug deaths while those from covid-19 is 6,500,000. That means the drug deaths cost the USA only 40% less in life years than does covid-19'
I don't know if this is the first time you ever thought about the above facts, but if you had, then you would know that drugs is a bigger problem for the USA than covid-19. I know that some of you may feel this is a radical idea, but is proven by the facts. In the end, what I have done is to "normalize" a set of data so that it can be compared. In the case of covid-19, the political set seems to keep focusing on "cases" of covid-19 rather than deaths or hospitalizations. That show a total lack of understanding or they are just dishonest!
If you follow this blog, you should inform your friends as a public service to them. We can not make correct decisions if we don't understand the data and the facts.
