#16,167
In November of last year, in The Georgia Tech COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, we looked at a paper published in Nature (see Real-time, interactive website for US-county-level COVID-19 event risk assessment) on an innovative, online, interactive COVID exposure risk map that would let the user drill down to any county in the nation.
On this Labor Day Holiday Weekend, with the Delta variant running roughshod over much of the country, schools just reopening, and more and more people gathering once again in public venues (often without face masks), today seemed like a good day to revisit this valuable (and updated) - tool.
I live in central Florida and over the past few weeks have been monitoring several nearby county EMS/FIRE/Police dispatch frequencies with my scanner, and I can attest to the fact that COVID has EMS crews, and hospitals, stretched to their limit.
Many hospitals are on `divert' or `bypass' - meaning they are swamped and unable to accept any new patients. A check this morning of Hillsborough County Hospitals (Tampa), finds that of the 12 primary hospitals, only 4 are operating normally this morning (4 are on Volume Bypass, 3 on Critical Care Bypass, and 1 on Total Divert).
This impacts everyone - not just COVID patients - sometimes forcing stroke, cardiac, or trauma patients to be airlifted, or transported, to medical facilities much farther away. Hospitals are swamped, and EMS personnel are worn ragged, and this is only the first week of September.
As a former paramedic (long ago, in a galaxy far away . . .) I've seen these sorts of conditions before - in the middle of winter during a major flu epidemic - but this is typically the `slow' season for EMS calls in Florida.
I shudder to think what things will look like this winter, particularly if influenza is added to the mix.
All of which makes it more important than ever to make an informed decision about where you will go, what you will do, and what precautions you will take during this pandemic.
Aiding in that decision is the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, which allows you to select a county, and the size of the gathering (10 to 5000+) you will attend, and calculates your odds of being exposed to at least 1 COVID positive person.
You can drill down to state, or even county level, to see your current estimated risk of exposure. In the example below, I've hovered my cursor over Pasco County, and find that in a small gathering (n=20), there is a 58% chance of being exposed to a COVID positive individual.
The bigger the gathering, the greater the chance of exposure. Change the venue to a gathering of 50 people - say in a restaurant or a supermarket - and that risk jumps to 88%. Make it a wedding or movie theatre (n=100), and you have a 99% chance of sharing the same indoor airspace.
This program makes certain assumptions, such as local vaccination rates (and its effectiveness), `ascertainment bias' (based on amount of local testing), and is highly dependent upon accurate, local reporting of cases.
Of course, surveillance data always lags by a week or two, and there are a few counties - particularly in the midwest - where there is insufficient data for the program to work. Despite these limitations, this is one of the best tools of its sort I've seen.
Even if you perceive COVID activity to be low in your part of the country, it wouldn't hurt to visit this website once a week - or before attending any large gathering - to try to get a feel of the risk involved.
Plug in the size of the group you'll be in, and then decide if wearing a face mask might be prudent, even if you are fully vaccinated.
As we move into an uncertain fall and winter, with COVID and the potential return of influenza looming large, having this Risk Assessment Planning Tool can help people make more informed, and hopefully better, decisions.
Highly recommended.
