MySQL: How to count from columns separately?

Question

Usually I feel pretty confident with SQL queries, however this one has me scratching my head. I feel like this -should- be a quick fix, but I'm just not seeing it.

I'm trying to do a count on multiple values on the same table, in one query.

Don't mind the "0000000000000000" it's just representing an empty byte array.

Is there an easy way to combine these queries?

SELECT COUNT(ssn)
FROM patients
WHERE ssn="0000000000000000";

SELECT COUNT(firstname)
FROM patients
WHERE firstname="0000000000000000"

SELECT COUNT(lastname)
FROM patients
WHERE lastname="0000000000000000"

etc...

Answer 1

SELECT SUM(CASE WHEN ssn = '0000000000000000' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS ssn_count,
       SUM(CASE WHEN firstname = '0000000000000000' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS first_count,
       SUM(CASE WHEN lastname = '0000000000000000' THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS last_count
    FROM patients
    WHERE ssn = '0000000000000000'
        OR firstname = '0000000000000000'
        OR lastname = '0000000000000000'

Answer 2

You can do something like this -

SELECT COUNT(ssn) AS patient_count, 'ssn' AS count_type
FROM patients
WHERE ssn="0000000000000000";
UNION
SELECT COUNT(firstname) AS patient_count, 'firstname' AS count_type
FROM patients
WHERE firstname="0000000000000000"
UNION
SELECT COUNT(lastname) AS patient_count, 'lastname' AS count_type
FROM patients
WHERE lastname="0000000000000000"