A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK COMMENTS:

Perhaps regional responses and attitudes about the continuing shelter-in-place can be explained, in part, by some startling numbers. In New York State you have a roughly 1/16,390 chance of dying in a car accident in any given year (using numbers from a few years ago). So far, your chances of dying of Covid-19 in NYS are an arresting 1/1072, or roughly 16X WORSE than dying in a car accident. In Texas, by comparison, your chances of dying in a car accident are much worse at 1/7820, but your chances of dying of Covid-19 (again, so far) are a very remote 1/58,824. Driving a car in Texas, a risk we take every day, is roughly 7X more dangerous than the Covid. Again, so far… None of this is to say that any given policy was the wrong approach (and, in any case, one can never derive “what ought” from “what is,” a basic precept lost in most public commentary just now). It might suggest, however, why civil impatience to loosen some restrictions is growing at different rates in different places.

Good point.