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Is there an ‘acceptable’ risk of death? | David Spiegelhalter and Anthony Masters
The pandemic has led to discussion of what are unacceptable risks to life and what measures are needed to push these down
At the recent press briefing, we were warned “we must learn to live” with this virus, with people continuing to die. So is there is an “acceptable” number of Covid-19 deaths?
Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, highlighted that we live with seasonal flu, which kills thousands each year. Like deaths from air pollution, these deaths are estimated from statistical models and this can introduce volatility. The number of flu deaths in England over the winter of 2017-18 was estimated as 26,400 in 2019, but dropped to 22,000 by 2020.
Read the original article at The Guardian