Healthy under-40s in Southport ‘more likely’ to die in a car crash than from Coronavirus

Fit and healthy Southport residents under 50 should be more worried about crossing the road than fighting off the Coronavirus, according to a leading statistician.

Whilst strict social distancing, mask wearing and self isolation is key to helping fight off the deadly virus, one Cambridge University statistician has boldly claimed that people in Southport should be more worried about being hit by a car.

Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said there had been 959 Covid-19 deaths out of 18million people in the Under 50s range in England and Wales so far.

Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.

The professor said his analysis reinforced ‘the extraordinary impact of age on the risk of catching and dying from Covid’.

Sir David said: ‘These are average risks, including those with pre-existing medical conditions. Healthy younger people (under 50s) had less than a third of this risk.

‘Future risks will be far lower still, due to the reduced chance of catching the virus compared to the peak of the epidemic.’

‘These are just risks to the individuals themselves. They can still pose a risk to others and should protect the vulnerable. Without lockdown, these risks would have been higher.

‘But the risk of catching it will be lower in the future than it has been over the last 11 weeks or so, because we know from ONS (Office for National Statistics) surveys that the number of people who are infectious, are infected and therefore can transmit disease, has been steadily dropping.’