Assess odds of catching virus

Tool analyzes probability in a crowd

It’s one of the great mysteries of the coronavirus pandemic. Who has it?

With those infected with COVID-19 often not showing symptoms for up to two weeks, and sometimes not at all, it can be difficult to get a grasp on just where the disease is. It’s the reason there are mask mandates, that people are supposed to socially distance, that large gatherings are off-limits.

An online tool created by Georgia Tech University adds a little bit of clarity to the question.

While not able to accomplish the impossible task of pinpointing everyone who is infected, it does provide county-level risk assessment of being near someone who is.

The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool, which can be found at covid19risk. biosci.gatech.edu, provides data on the chances that at least one person has COVID-19 in crowds of different sizes. Countyspecific data is available for crowd sizes of 10 to 10,000.

According to the tool, in any crowd of 1,000 or more in Berks there is a near certainty that at least one person will be infected with COVID-19.

Here are the risk assessments provided for Berks:

• Crowd size of 10 has a 4% chance of including one infected person.

• Crowd of 25, a 10% chance.

• Crowd

20% chance.

• Crowd

36% chance.

• Crowd of

89% chance.

After that, it’s a virtual certainty. of of 50, 100, 500, a a an

COUNTY

Any crowd of 1,000 or greater has a 99% chance of an infected person.

Nearby counties have fairly similar assessments, with all showing a near certainty of a COVID-infected person being in groups of 1,000 or more. Several counties in the region show that level of risk for crowds of 500.