Interactive COVID-19 Tool Helps Assess Risk When You Consider Attending Events

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Leaving home used to be a simpler choice. Whether you were headed to work, the grocery store, school, or a gathering of friends, you probably left home without much thought about your safety. You might have planned a trip to visit family, attend an event, or go on vacation without a second thought about your risk of catching a deadly disease.

All of that changed last year with COVID-19 and now the safest places may no longer be safe. You may be tired of seeing people on Zoom and want to get together in person.

The world has experienced over 90 million cases of COVID-19 and nearly two million deaths due to the disease Currently, United States daily cases have been exceeding 300,000 and daily deaths have reached over 4000. Hotspots are becoming hotter and the vaccine rollout has been slower than anticipated.

So how can you know your risks of exposure to COVID-19 as you try to make plans?

A tool developed by scientists at Georgia Tech can help assess your risk of exposure to COVID-19 based on the size of the event and the rate of infection in an area. The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool is an interactive website that can help estimate your risk of being around someone infected with the virus.

This tool can help you when you need information about the risks of attending an event. And it may help you convince a loved one not to venture out to especially risky places.

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About the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool

The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool shows interactive maps of the United States and parts of Europe to help you gauge the risk of getting together with others during the pandemic, based on infection rates in the area.

The site was launched in July 2020 covering the United States and expanded to include certain countries in Europe in October 2020. “The website provides data-driven information to help individuals and policy makers make prudent decisions (for example, increasing mask-wearing compliance and avoiding larger gatherings) that could help control the spread of [COVID-19], particularly in hard-hit regions.”

For a deeper dive into the science behind this tool, check out Nature Human Behavior, Real-time, interactive website for US-county-level COVID-19 event risk assessment

This tool includes maps that illustrate the risk level of going to an event based on the event size and location. According to the site, “The risk level is the estimated chance (0-100%) that at least 1 COVID-19 positive individual will be present at an event in a county, given the size of the event.”

Visitors to the site are cautioned, “You can reduce the risk that one case becomes many by wearing a mask, distancing, and gathering outdoors in smaller groups”

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Disclaimer

Keep in mind that this tool assesses your COVID-19 exposure risk, it doesn’t guarantee your safety. The site explains, “All of our calculations are necessarily estimates, based on imperfect data. We can’t tell you the probability that someone in the event will get infected. It’s important to remember that a certain amount of chance is involved in these outcomes. We’d encourage large event planners to exercise caution in the coming months, especially given the potential for one infected person to transmit the virus to many others in one super-spreading event (Biogen conference, Atalanta-Valencia soccer match, Washington choir practice).”

How to Use the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool

Using the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool is easy. Head to the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool to see the maps with color-coded risk levels. Choose between United States and Global risk estimates using the green button below the map.

The maps are divided into counties, so you can assess your risk based on reported cases in a specific area. You can zoom in to make the map larger to find a county you’re planning to visit. Or zoom out to get a bigger picture of the COVID-19 risk level.

Slide the Event Size scale to adjust the size of your planned gathering. The scale ranges from 10 to 5000 and the map colors change based on the size of your gathering.

A key on the map shows the color for each risk level, ranging from < 1 to > 99% risk. Those are the risks that someone attending the gathering would be infected with COVID-19 based on the infection rate in the area.

Note, that if you’re considering attending a gathering of 5000 people, there are very few places in the United States and none in the covered areas of Europe that are low risk.

But if your gathering is 10 people, the risk levels are more varied. Yet, even with only 10 people, a gathering in Pershing, Nevada still has a 96% chance of having someone who is infected attend, according to this site.

Ascertainment Bias Level — Assuming More Cases Exist than Are Reported

You can also change the Ascerrtainment Bias level. That option adjusts the results based on an estimate of how many people currently are infected beyond those with reported infections. The default Ascerrtainment Bias level is five, meaning for every reported case there are five more people infected that haven’t been reported. You can change the Ascerrtainment Bias level to 10, though no other level options are currently offered.

Other Resources on the Site

You can explore other tabs on the site, including Real-time US and State-Level Estimates, USA Continuous Risk Estimates, Data Sources, and more.

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Other COVID-19 Tracking Tools

The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool is one of many helpful COVID-19 online tools. Here are some others to help you track the spread of COVID-19:

Johns Hopkins COVID Data Resource Center with maps, graphs, and lists of infection and death rates around the world.

Worldometers COVID-19 Infection Rates site that shows an interactive chart comparing infections and death rates for countries, states, and counties. Explore total counts, daily counts, and counts per 100,000 people.

CDC (Centers for Disease Control) Global COVID-19 Data Tracker that shows COVID-19 infection rates by country in a chart and on a map. You can change the time range from the last 24 hours to the past 7, 14, and 30 day infection rates, as well as cumulative infection rates.

COVID Act Now that lets you compare relative infection rates, testing positivity rates, ICU capacity, and risk levels for states, counties, and metro areas in the United States using graphs, charts, and maps.

Your Thoughts

Have you used the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool to assess the risk level for a location? Do you find this tool helpful in assessing the risk of attending gatherings during the pandemic? What other COVID-19 online tools do you recommend?

Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!