Written and published on 11 August 2020

Image: “Salon of the electric train 81-765 / 766/767 ‘Moscow’ with red stickers on keeping the distance. March-April 2020, the period of the COVID-19 pandemic,” by https://www.mos.ru/news/item/71988073/ … April 2020, in Wikipedia … https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:%D0%A0%D0%B0%D0%B7%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%82%D0%BA%D0%B0_%D0%B4%D0%BB%D1%8F_%D1%81%D0%BE%D0%B1%D0%BB%D1%8E%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F_%D0%B4%D0%B8%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B8_%D0%B2_%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%82%D1%80%D0%BE_04.jpg … CC BY 4.0

Dear Ones,

I read in the Los Angeles Times that 99 people passed on of COVID in California yesterday (which seems like a pretty scary number, to me) …

Link: “Tracking the Coronavirus in California,” in the Los Angeles Times …  https://www.latimes.com/projects/california-coronavirus-cases-tracking-outbreak/ ..

I have been seeing these pretty high statistics for some time, here in California. Today I wondered how likely it would be I might see a person pass on of COVID, so I crunched the numbers. Here is what I found out …

There are about 41 million people in California, per Google.

(99 COVID deaths yesterday) divided by (41 million California population) times 100 (to get percent) = 0.0024 percent, which is to say, 0.0024 per 100 people.

That decimal point is way too small, so I recalculated for the number of deaths per 10 million people, like this …

(99 COVID deaths) divided by (41 million California population) times 10,000,000 (to get number of deaths per 10M) = 24 COVID deaths per 10M people. I guess I would have had to see 10 million people yesterday in order to see 24 people pass on of COVID?

But I don’t see more than 10 or 20 people on a usual day.

I thought to recalculate how many California people it would have taken to have 1 COVID death in the group yesterday. I figured it like this …

(99 COVID deaths) divided by (41 million California population) = (1 COVID death) divided by (‘x’ number of California people)

99 / 41,000,000 = 1/x
x = 41,000,000 /99 = 414,141 people

So I might expect to see 1 COVID death yesterday had I been amongst 414,141 people.

But I only see 10 or 20 people daily. Under lockdown conditions it seems to me I might never see a COVID death. That would explain why things seem so normal here in the San Fernando Valley, I guess.

Let’s say I took a public bus to work and served food to visitors at a fast food restaurant drive-in window. How many people would I have met yesterday in that case?

Let’s say I was one of 20 people on the public bus going to work, and one of 20 people on the bus on the way home. That would be 40 people encountered on the bus.

I see here that a fast food restaurant serves about 300 customers a day …

Link: “9 Fast Food Stats That Will Blow Your Mind,” in Fox Business … https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/9-fast-food-stats-that-will-blow-your-mind ..

Say there are 3 customers per car, and I am one of four servers in a 24-hour period. That might mean the fast food restaurant serves 100 cars a day (which is 300 customers divided by 3 people per car). I am one of four servers, so I might serve a fourth of the 100 cars daily. That would be 25 cars, and 25 drivers that I encounter daily.

Then there are the 10 people at home and on my own street, neighbors and friends.

So the total people encountered by a fast food server daily in California would be 40 on public transit, 25 cars served at the fast food drive-up window, and 10 people at home or on my street.

That would be a total 75 people I meet daily as a fast food server. As figured above, there is one daily COVID death in California per 414,141 people. That would be a great many more than the 75 people I would meet as a fast food server. So, I am guessing, the likelihood I might see a COVID death while serving fast food is still quite low.

I just wondered about this, as the Los Angeles Times daily COVID-19 statistics seem pretty scary to me. I guess we are not that likely to see anyone passing on of COVID during the entire course of the pandemic … which, to me, is very good news, in a way.

In love, light and joy,
I Am of the Stars
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United States, California, COVID-19, COVID, coronavirus pandemic, community health, health,