Table 3.

Age-specific economic costs of COVID-19 deaths for the state of Texas.

Age groupings	Number of deaths	% of total deaths	Cost from death (millions of dollars)	% of Texas total cost (%)
Under 1 year	2	0.03500787677	7.48	0.03
1–4 years	0.5	0.008751969193	1.87	0.01
5–14 years	4.5	0.07876772274	16.83	0.08
15–24 years	27.5	0.4813583056	102.85	0.47
25–34 years	84	1.470330824	792.12	3.61
35–44 years	218	3.815858568	2105.88	9.60
45–54 years	474.5	8.305618764	3829.22	17.46
55–64 years	850	14.87834763	2915.50	13.30
65 + years	4052	70.92595834	12,156.00	55.44
Total	5713	100	21,927.75	100.00

0.5 deaths exist here because of artificial age group delineations. Texas reports deaths in 10-year age groups, i.e. 1–9 years, 10–19 years, 20–29 years, etc. The age grouping we use, however, derives from Aldy and Viscusi²⁹ (see Table S1 in “Supplemental Files”). The misalignment necessitates splitting of several age groups in two, creating the 0.5 deaths. It is common practice in VSL calculations to include all individuals, regardless of age. This is due to the nature of the VSL concept, which is meant to capture the value the society assigns to human life, instead of the resulting loss in life-time income/earnings.