Because you can’t see the coronavirus and many infected with it show no symptoms, it can be difficult to grasp how risky a certain situation is. But a new online tool is making that calculation a bit easier for people in the Bay Area and beyond.
The interactive map, developed by professors at Georgia Tech, lets people explore the odds that coronavirus will be present at an event anywhere in the U.S., depending on the event’s size and the county in which it’s located. The map calculates the likelihood of whether each gathering would include someone who is currently infectious.
A quick browse through the map yields some troubling numbers. If you’re in San Francisco County and decide to attend a gathering of 25 people, there’s a 34% chance that someone who’s coronavirus-positive will be in attendance. In Marin County, the risk is 75%. In Alameda County, it’s 31%.
Increase the gathering size to 50, and the risk goes up significantly. In San Francisco County, the likelihood is 56%; in Marin County, it’s 94%. Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and Sonoma counties all hover around the 52%-56% range.
The tool calculates the odds that at least one person at the event is infectious. It does not indicate your own risk of coronavirus exposure or infection at the event.
Joshua Weitz, a professor of biological sciences at Georgia Tech and the lead developer of the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, collaborated with fellow professor Clio Andris to develop it. The map was based on data from The Atlantic’s COVID Tracking Project as well as 2019 census data.
The tool’s origins, Weitz said, began in March when he was considering the implications of rising case counts. Friends and colleagues were asking him about the chances that someone might be infected at an event.
In recent months, he’s noticed the distressing impacts of the nation’s patchwork reopening: hundreds of infected campers at a YMCA summer camp in Georgia, at least 77 active cases after a Biogen conference in Massachusetts, and the surge in infections across the U.S. as many counties have begun to relax restrictions.
“We want people to be informed about the risk — that it’s real, it’s elevated, and many people may be asymptomatic,” Weitz said. “It reinforces the need to wear masks.”
Annie Vainshtein is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: avainshtein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annievain
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August 05, 2020 at 06:00PM
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If 25 people gather in SF, odds are 34% that at least one has coronavirus: New tool shows risk - San Francisco Chronicle
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