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Ebola vs. Lottery: Your Odds Of Winning Jackpot Are Much Better
CBS 2 CHICAGO ^ | 30 OCTOBER 2014 | CBS 2 CHICAGO

Posted on 10/30/2014 5:49:15 PM PDT by Extremely Extreme Extremist

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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

You know, they always tell you that the odds of getting hit by lightning are small, too, but they still recommend that you don’t play golf in a thunderstorm.


21 posted on 10/30/2014 6:28:33 PM PDT by fhayek
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

SeeBS out of Chicago. Good luck with those lottery winnings. LOL! Fools.


22 posted on 10/30/2014 6:36:14 PM PDT by FlingWingFlyer (Ebola and Enterovirus-D68. Proud members of Viruses Without Borders.)
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To: fhayek

“You know, they always tell you that the odds of getting hit by lightning are small, too, but they still recommend that you don’t play golf in a thunderstorm.”

I always love it when people talk odds and lightening.

I have been hit by lightening 3 times in my life.

Long odds make good small talk at cocktail parties, but they won’t do anything to protect you.


23 posted on 10/30/2014 6:53:20 PM PDT by wrench (While not "airborne" , Ebola is a Spit-Borne virus. Good thing no one sneezes in public)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Like anyone in the MSM passed fifth grade math.

Sorry, I get my medical advice from professionals, like the Ebola Czar.

No, wait....


24 posted on 10/30/2014 6:58:49 PM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Total population of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea combined: 6M + 4.3M + 11.7M = 22 million. Total dead so far 4922 (official count - actual number estimated to be 2.5 to 4 times as large). Empirical probability of dying in a country in which Ebola is out of control: at least 1 in 5,000. This is a whole lot higher than the probability of winning a large lottery prize.

What are the odds of Ebola spreading in the United States? That depends on our policies, just as the odds in West Africa were influenced by their burial practices. If we act sensibly, we are almost guaranteed to keep Ebola contained. If we send large numbers of soldiers over there to do work for which they are not trained, if we fast track visas for people in infected countries and refuse to quarantine travelers, and if we keep our southern border open and unprotected, our odds are not as good as they might be.

And the chances of Obama acting in the interests of the American people? Far less than 1 in 175,000,000.


25 posted on 10/30/2014 7:00:59 PM PDT by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

And if we quarantine those possibly infected, it’ll stay that way.


26 posted on 10/30/2014 7:01:08 PM PDT by sitetest (If Roe is not overturned, no unborn child will ever be protected in law.)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

The lottery odds are fixed. Ebola odds are shall we say somewhat fluid but for now low in the US. In Liberia somewhat higher.


27 posted on 10/30/2014 7:01:10 PM PDT by xp38
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To: palmer
And the lottery is not even available in the countries which are currently having Ebola outbreaks.

The odds of Barrack Hussein Obama, the first African American President of the United States of American, of speaking without telling an lie is a hundred million times greater than you winning the lottery.

28 posted on 10/30/2014 7:06:01 PM PDT by highpockets
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Stupid comparison.

Anyone anywhere can win the lottery. Location plays a huge part in catching Ebola. Do you live near or work in an airport? Do you work in a hospital near an airport? Might you be in a hospital for other reasons soon? Is your immune system on full force? Do you live in a big city? Do you ride public transportstion? Do you fly across country twice a week (one of my family members carries this risk)?


29 posted on 10/30/2014 7:06:14 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: wrench

I have been hit by lightening 3 times in my life.


Seriously? Wow. We don’t have lightning where I live, and when I visited a stormy city last spring, we actually had the house we were in hit by lightning. It was the weirdest sound, like a huge piece of metal slamming to the ground from a high drop. Three nice big TVs destroyed too.

Glad you are ok, sheesh!!


30 posted on 10/30/2014 7:11:05 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

THE point. Good one.


31 posted on 10/30/2014 7:11:13 PM PDT by majormaturity
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

The relative odds are irrelevant.

Americans should have had a zero chance of contracting Ebola. Only because of the immigration and migration policies of this administration do Americans now have the chance to contract Ebola. Only because of these policies have two American nurses who did not travel to Africa contract Ebola.


32 posted on 10/30/2014 7:56:05 PM PDT by beekay
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Anyone know the odds of Electing a Community Rabble Rousing Mulatto Marxist as President only 20 Years after Reagan left Office?


33 posted on 10/30/2014 8:01:21 PM PDT by Kickass Conservative (THEY LIVE, and we're the only ones wearing the Sunglasses.)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

This is stupid. Now, today, maybe. And in August, your chance of catching the flu is pretty low too. But, if this thing truly can spread via sneezes, droplets, etc.—check back in a few months and check your odds.


34 posted on 10/30/2014 8:06:17 PM PDT by riri (Obama's Amerika--Not a fun place.)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist
The whole concept of trying to minimize the threat of some adverse event by pointing out the probability of it happening to a particular person only comes out when the risk fits the liberal agenda.

Thus while the chance of a child being killed by a crazy school shooter is infinitesimal, and less than their risk of drowning in a pool, or in a car crash, or even at the hands of their own mother we see all kinds of attempts to take away everyone's rights after each school shooting. Never do we read articles like this pointing out the rarity of such awful events.

Now we're got the opposite. The same liberals try to say why worry, thousands of people die from the flu each year, and your odds of dying from Ebola are infinitesimal. But then why do we take such extreme measures to avoid other risks? After all when you apply the probability test even most terrorist attacks don't shift your actual probability of death significantly.

Of course the probability of death in a given event isn't really a good measure of what choices we should make in society. Valuing human life compels us to do otherwise.

35 posted on 10/30/2014 8:23:06 PM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: Pollster1
Applying your analysis to the Washington Post's chart shows that for countries where the epidemic is happening, the death rate from the disease is like the death rate here from diabetes, the sixth most likely cause of death according to the Washington Post.

Applying the 1 in 5000 rate to our population would result in around 63,000 deaths. Somehow that doesn't seem like a situation one would consider insignificant.

36 posted on 10/30/2014 8:32:57 PM PDT by freeandfreezing
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Lotto is voluntary. I don’t by lotto tickets thus I will not win. I also don’t traveo Liberia. BUT some punk liberal do gooder can infect me with a shopping cart.


37 posted on 10/30/2014 9:44:34 PM PDT by Organic Panic
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To: freeandfreezing
Applying the 1 in 5000 rate to our population would result in around 63,000 deaths. Somehow that doesn't seem like a situation one would consider insignificant.

That's the results for the first ten months of this year. Given the doubling rate, it would take a miracle (or a vaccine) to keep the West African death rate below a reported 1 in 50 over the next year (adjusting for under-reporting, that is from 1 in 20 to 1 in 12, ignoring the likelihood that reporting would be disrupted by the crisis).

38 posted on 10/31/2014 1:52:19 AM PDT by Pollster1 ("Shall not be infringed" is unambiguous.)
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To: madison10
Yeah, right. The lottery isn’t contagious, via air or touch. They aren’t even worth comparing.

Probably similar odds for needing a gun to protect oneself (from others in public) but I still carry one...

Big odds are a comfort to everyone but those who end up being the "statistical anomalies"...

39 posted on 10/31/2014 4:00:31 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Now calculate the odds of contracting Ebola,
1 year from today,
assuming 3 Ebola-shedders per month imported from Africa,
each infecting 2 Americans,
and,
assume an R(0) of 2 in America.


40 posted on 10/31/2014 4:18:01 AM PDT by richardskeet
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