Holiday Events In Glenview: What Is Risk Of COVID-19 Exposure?
GLENVIEW, IL — With the holidays fast approaching and COVID-19 rates climbing, public health officials are urging people to avoid gatherings of any size. But, according to an Ohio State University Poll, nearly 2 in 5 Americans plan to ignore that advice and attend a large holiday gathering anyway.
If that includes you, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory and Stanford University have created a new risk assessment tool you might be interested in. The interactive map uses county-level health data to show the risk of coronavirus transmission based on an event's size and location, anywhere in the country.
More specifically, the tool calculates the likelihood — from zero to 100 percent — that you'll encounter at least one person with the coronavirus at your holiday event. You can reduce that risk by wearing a mask, social distancing, gathering outdoors and reducing the size of the event, researchers said.
Pritzker: Statewide Stay-At-Home Order 'Seems Like Where We Are Headed'
State health officials have asked residents to "stay at home as much as possible" over the next three weeks, but stopped short of issuing any orders to that effect. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot also announced a stay-at-home advisory for 30 days in response to spiking coronavirus cases in the city, and county health officials followed suit with their own stay-at-home advisory for suburban Cook County.
As of Monday, if you were to attend an event in Glenview or elsewhere in Cook County with 10 people — the stay-at-home advisory's recommended limit — there would be a 34 percent chance that someone at the event would have the virus, according to online tool. Increase the event's size to 15 people — five over the limit — and the risk goes up to 46 percent.
With 25 people at the event, the risk jumps to 64 percent, and with 50, it goes all the way up to 87 percent.
"By default we assume there are five times more cases than are being reported," the research team that built the tool said in a statement. "In places with less testing availability, that bias may be higher."
Access the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool here to find out the risk in your area.
Experts say the coronavirus is airborne, and tiny droplets containing the virus can linger indoors for hours as aerosols, making indoor events like Thanksgiving dinner especially risky, since guests have to remove their masks to eat and drink.
Instead of a traditional family gathering, the CDC recommends keeping celebrations within a single household or with those who are consistently taking measures to reduce the spread of COVID-19. That means potentially excluding students who are currently away at college and may bring the virus back to vulnerable relatives.
If you do gather with extended family or friends, consider having dinner outside, and be sure to read the CDC's tips for keeping Thanksgiving as safe as possible.
Keep Thanksgiving Virtual Or Within Own Household In IL: CDC
State health officials on Monday reported 11,632 new cases of the coronavirus and 37 more deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the virus. Altogether, more than half a million Illinoisans have now caught the virus, more than 10,000 have died, and hospitalizations have rocketed to all-time highs.
Amber Fisher, Patch Staff contributed to this reporting.
This article originally appeared on the Glenview Patch
