You’re reading Significant Digits, a daily digest of the numbers tucked inside the news.
1,052 deaths
Officially, 64 people died in Puerto Rico due to Hurricane Maria. But The New York Times estimated that as many as 1,052 people died in the 42 days following the hurricane’s landfall because of the storm. They determined that by comparing death levels during those days in a typical year to the spike witnessed after the natural disaster struck. [The New York Times]
$4.9 billion
Puerto Rico has still not received any of the $4.9 billion in short-term loans promised in a congressional storm aid package in October. The territory has requested $94 billion in federal aid to help recover from debilitating back-to-back hurricanes. [Bloomberg]
6 seconds
A woman in her 20s who stared directly at this summer’s solar eclipse for six seconds without protection when the sun was only 70 percent covered by the moon permanently damaged her retinas, a new scientific paper published in JAMA Ophthalmology reports. [The Verge]
17 percent
Approximate percentage of Alabamans who live in poverty, one of the state’s many challenges that have gone largely unaddressed in a special U.S. Senate election defined by scandal, with the favored contender accused of child molestation. [The New York Times]
54 percent
A survey of African Americans found that 54 percent thought the city of Boston was unwelcoming to people of color, ahead of Charlotte (38 percent), Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco (all 34 percent), New York (28 percent), Miami (24 percent) and Atlanta (16 percent). [The Boston Globe]
$1.7 billion
In 2013 Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss owned about $11 million worth of bitcoin, an amount worth over $1.7 billion today. It is unclear how much of that stake they have retained. [Bloomberg]
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