Горизонт N6/835

RUSSIAN DENVER
Colorado Russian Newspaper published in English 720-436-7613 www.gorizont.com/rd
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killed about 17 per 100,000 people
in the United States, or about
55,000 people in total. Of those,
about 23,700 were people age
85 or older, and 186 were infants
younger than 1 year old. But many
cases of flu can be prevented
through vaccination. The 2014 flu
shot decreased people’s chances
of getting the flu by only 19 percent,
but the vaccines developed
between 2012 and 2013 decreased
their chances by 56 percent, Live
Science found.
Suicide took the lives of about
42,700 individuals in 2014, meaning
that there were about 13 suicides
per 100,000 people in the
United States that year. It was the
10th leading cause of death in
the United States, topping death
by assault, which took about
13,000 lives that same year. The
number for the suicide hotline is
(800) 273–8255.
On other fronts, modern medicine
is helping people manage their
maladies. Human immunodeficiency
virus (HIV) disease killed
about 6,700 people in the United
States in 2014, or about 2 per
100,000 people. That’s substantially
fewer deaths than the virus
caused in 1999 (the first year listed
in CDC Wonder), when HIV took
the lives of about 14,800 people, or
about 5 per 100,000 people.
Worldwide, about 1.2 million
people, including 150,000 children
younger than age 15, died of
HIV-related causes in 2014, WHO
reported. That’s about a 57 percent
decrease from 1999, when about
2.8 million people worldwide died
of the disease, according to the
Joint United Nations Programme
on HIV/AIDS. The drop is largely
due to increased access to a drug
regimen called antiretroviral therapy
(ART), which keeps the virus
at low levels within the body, and
fewer people contracting the disease,
the WHO said.
Other diseases that plague the
world are very uncommon in the
United States. For instance, malaria
killed eight people in the U.S.
in 2014 but caused 584,000 deaths
worldwide, 90 percent of them in
Africa, according to the WHO.
Moreover, tuberculosis killed
493 people in the United States,
or 0.2 per 100,000 people in 2014.
Worldwide, the respiratory disease
killed 1.5 million people, the
WHO found.
Drug Overdoses
A total of 47,055 people died
of drug overdoses in the United
States in 2014, or 14.7 deaths per
100,000 people. The number is
alarming, as it represents an increase
of 6.5 percent over the previous
year, the CDC said.
«More persons died from drug
overdoses in the United States in
2014 than during any previous
year on record,» the CDC wrote in
a Jan. 1 report. «In 2014, there were
approximately one and a half times
more drug overdose deaths in the
United States than deaths from
motor vehicle crashes.» Deaths
from opioids (including opioid
pain relievers and heroin) came in
at 9 deaths per 100,000 people in
2014– a 14 percent increase from
2013. In fact, 61 percent of drug
overdose deaths included some
type of opioid, the CDC said.
Animal Attacks
Many people automatically
think of sharks when they imagine
deadly animals, but they’re
far from a leading cause of death.
CDC Wonder doesn’t always
mention the exact animal, but it
noted that nobody in the U.S. died
from «contact with a marine animal»
such as a whale or a shark in
2014 (although three people died
in this category in 2013).
However, in 2014, six people
died after being bitten or stung by
a nonvenomous insect, 36 people
died after being bitten or mauled
by a dog and 83 died after being
struck by a mammal (not including
dogs), such as a cow or a
horse. But rest assured– no one in
the U.S. reportedly died from rat
bites or crocodile or alligator attacks
in 2014. Furthermore, there
were no deaths from «contact with
plant thorns and spines and sharp
leaves,» though it’s good to know
that’s a category the CDC can use
just in case.
Worldwide, the deadliest animal
(after the mosquito, which
kills people with the illness-causing
pathogens it carries) is perhaps
the snake. Snakebites kill
20,000 people globally each year,
according to a 2008 study published
in the journal PLOS Medicine.
Transportation
In the United States, people
are much more likely to die while
walking on a roadway than from
tuberculosis or getting mauled by
an animal, the odds show. In the
United States, there were about
37,000 deaths from «transport
accidents» (including car, train,
motorcycle and boat accidents).
This number includes 6,200 pedestrians
who died in transportation
collisions– such as crashes
with cars, trucks, bikes and trains–
meaning that 2 pedestrians died
per 100,000 people.
In fact, more pedestrians died
in the United States than motorcyclists
(about 4,100 deaths) and
bicyclists (about 900 deaths) combined,
according to CDC Wonder.
But death rates from vehicle accidents
are still the highest: More
than 7,800 people died in a car,
pickup truck, van, heavy transport
vehicle (such as a semitruck) or
bus accident in 2014. That’s 2.5 per
100,000 people, according to CDC
Wonder.
Of the deaths due to traffic accidents
in the U.S., 31 percent were
due to alcohol, according to the
National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration (NHTSA). Of
the motor-vehicle-related deaths,
speeding accounted for 28 percent,
distracted driving for 10 percent
and drowsy drivers for almost
3 percent, the NHTSA said.
Terrorism & Homicides
In 2014, there were more than
32,700 deaths related to terrorism
worldwide, according to the U.S.
Department of State. (The department
has yet to post data from
2015, and undoubtedly, these
numbers have increased due to the
conflicts in Syria and elsewhere.)
More than 6,200 of the
32,700 people (19 percent) killed
were perpetrators. These people
died after committing suicide, by
accident or from security forces
or victims responding to the attacks,
the department reported.
The terrorist attacks happened in
95 countries, but 78 percent of all
terrorism fatalities took place in
Iraq, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan
and Syria, the department
said.
Large attacks increased from
2013 to 2014. In 2013, there were
two attacks that killed more than
100 people, but in 2014, there
were 20 attacks of this size. Moreover,
the death count increased by
81 percent in 2014 compared to in
2013, largely because of terrorist
activities in Iraq, Afghanistan and
Nigeria, the department reported.
Of course, it’s hard to define terrorism,
but the department makes
an attempt. Terrorism is a violent
act «aimed at attaining a political,
economic, religious or social goal»
that seeks to «coerce, intimidate
or convey some other message to
a larger audience,» according to
the report. Terrorism also breaks
international humanitarian law by
targeting «noncombatants,» or innocent
people.
In the United States, about another
10,900 people died from an
assault by a handgun, rifle, shotgun,
larger firearm or unspecified
firearm discharge in 2014,
accounting for 3.4 deaths per
100,00 people, the CDC reported.
(In this case, «firearm assaults» do
not include suicides, unintentional
shootings, shootings of undetermined
intent, justifiable shootings,
war or terrorism.)
Other Scary Ways to Die
For comparison, the table below
lists the deaths caused by
some of the more sensationalized
means, also in 2014. These
figures tend to vary significantly
from year to year, and in the case
of some– like deaths from venomous
spiders– can be just a handful,
or zero. They tend to be so low
that when the rate of deaths per
100,000 people is calculated, the
result is insignificantly tiny.
Natural Disasters
Preparedness can make a world
of difference when natural disasters
strike. Take tsunamis, for instance.
Since 2000 B.C., there have
been about 2,400 tsunamis that
have killed at least 500,000 people,
according to the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA). But the 2004 Sumatra
and 2011 Tohoku (Fukushima)
tsunamis were the deadliest waves
in recent history. [Fukushima Radiation
Leak: 5 Things You Should
Know]
About 300,000 people were in
danger during each of these disasters.
But about 230,000 people
died in the Sumatra tsunami,
whereas an estimated 16,000 died
in Japan, according to Vasily Titov,
an oceanographer at the NOAA
Center for Tsunami Research
in Seattle. The difference came
down to tsunami education programs
and warning systems in Japan,
Titov said. «About the same
amount of people were exposed
for both events, but 10 percent
of them died in Japan and about
90 percent were killed in Sumatra,»
Titov told Live Science.
Fewer people died in Japan because
«everyone is very much in
tune with the tsunami hazard,»
and hundreds of thousands of
people evacuated to shelters during
and after the catastrophe, he
said.
Tsunami readiness may help
save lives in the future. Nowadays,
people who live on the coastlines
of large bodies of water, especially
the Pacific and Indian oceans,
are at risk, and these populations
are only growing. In 2000, about
625.2 million people worldwide
lived in low-elevation coastal
zones, according to a 2015 study
published in the journal PLOS
ONE. The researchers estimated
that between 879 million and
949 million people will live in
these low-elevation areas by 2030,
making tsunami education and
warning systems paramount.
But preparedness appears to be
paying off. In 2010, an 8.8-magnitude
earthquake in Chile triggered
a tsunami, and together, the earthquake
and tsunami killed about
Cause of Death
Number of U.S. deaths in
2014 (total deaths = 2.6 million)
Dengue fever 2
Venomous snakes or lizards 5
Nonvenomous insects 6
Venomous spiders 7
Malaria 8
Nonpowered aircraft(Ex: hot air
13
balloons, hang gliders)
Lightning 25
Struck or bitten by dog 36
Salmonella infection 45
Cataclysmic storm 61
Mauled by a mammal (not
83
including dogs)
Avalanche, landslide or other
85
Earth movement
Contact with venomous plants or
91
animals (Ex: bees, scorpions)
Explosions (including gas) 116
500 people. The tsunami was responsible
for fewer than 200 of
the deaths, Titov said. In 2015, an
8.3-magnitude earthquake in
Chile also triggered a tsunami, but
the country immediately evacuated
about 1 million people away
from the coastline, and only five
people died in the catastrophe,
Titov said.
To survive a tsunami, create
a safety kit and plan, so you and
your family know where to meet
and how to evacuate to higher
ground, Ready.gov advises. Also–
needless to say– stay away from
the beach.
Unlike for tsunamis, there is
no warning system for earthquakes.
But few large tremblors
have struck populated areas of
the United States in recent years.
A total of eight people died from
earthquakes from 1999 to 2014 in
the United States, the CDC reported.
Worldwide, earthquakes have
killed tens of thousands of people.
An estimated 629 people died
from earthquakes in 2012; about
22,000 in 2011; and 320,120 in
2010, largely from the 7.0-magnitude
earthquake in Haiti, according
to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Avalanches and landslides also
caused havoc. A total of 549 people
died in these natural disasters
from 1999 to 2014 in the United
States. The deadliest year was
2014, with 85 deaths, including
43 from the catastrophic landslide
in Oso, Washington.
Earth could also experience
extraterrestrial threats from asteroids.
After all, an asteroid is
thought to have wiped out 75 percent
of all species (including the
dinosaurs) about 65 million years
ago, at the end of the Cretaceous
period. But no human death ever
recorded was due to an asteroid, so
it’s hard to give the odds of dying
from one of these space rocks, said
Lindley Johnson, NASA’s planetary
defense officer. (A meteorite
reportedly killed a man in southern
India on Feb. 6, but NASA has
yet to confirm whether the mysterious
object is, in fact, a meteorite,
NASA said)
«It is so rare, there has never
been a scientifically confirmed report
of someone being killed by a
meteorite impact in recorded history,»
NASA’s Planetary Defense
Officer Lindley Johnson told Live
Science in February. «There have
been reports of injuries, but even
those were extremely rare before
the Chelyabinsk event three years
ago.»
Lightning is far more deadly,
with 25 people getting zapped by
a bolt in the United States in 2014.
Cataclysmic storms (such as hurricanes,
tornadoes, dust storms
and tidal waves– which are shallow
water waves) are even worse,
killing 61 people in the country in
2014.
So take precautions, caring for
your health and your safety, lest
you become a statistic. But don’t
stress about the freak events– odds
are, you’ll die of something much
more mundane.