Coronavirus Spread In Falls Church: See Your Risk Of Exposure
FALLS CHURCH, VA — Virginia is in the midst of an increase in coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. State health officials are urging residents to celebrate Thanksgiving with their own households or take precautions when celebrating with others.
As of Nov. 15, Virginia has new measures implemented by Gov. Ralph Northam. That includes a 25-person limit on social gatherings, down from the previous 250-person limit. In addition, the governor's face mask mandate for indoor public places is expanded to include anyone five and over.
What is your risk of exposure?
Researchers from several universities have created an event risk planning tool for every county in the nation. The map shows the risk of coronavirus transmission based on an event's size and location.
A new tool shows the estimated chance — between 0 and 100 percent — that you'll encounter at least one person with the coronavirus at an event in your county. You can reduce the risk by wearing a mask, distancing and gathering outdoors in smaller groups, researchers said.
The tool looks at the risk by gathering sizes between 10 and 5,000. As of Wednesday, if you were to attend an event with 10 people in the City of Falls Church, there would be a 1 percent chance that someone at the event would have the virus, according to the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool. For a gathering size of 25 people, that chance increases to 3 percent. A gathering of 50 people bears a 6 percent chance that someone has the virus.
This is using a 5:1 ascertainment bias, meaning the researchers assume there are five times more cases than are being reported.
"By default we assume there are five times more cases than are being reported," the research team said in a statement. "In places with less testing availability, that bias may be higher."
Two Georgia Institute of Technology professors led the creation of the project, and their team included researchers from Stanford University and the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory.
Use the COVID-19 "Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool" here.
Traditional Thanksgiving gatherings with family and friends are fun but can increase the chances of getting or spreading COVID-19 or the flu. Follow these tips to make your Thanksgiving holiday safer. https://t.co/5mc6PPWx2G pic.twitter.com/gqyI8B5IO0
— Va Dept of Health (@VDHgov) November 16, 2020
Patch editor Amber Fisher contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on the Falls Church Patch
