BEAUMONT, Texas — If you attend an event with 50 people in Jefferson County today there's a 98% chance that at least one of them will be COVID-positive.
A new tool developed by Georgia Tech allows people to look up their risk of encountering COVID-19 at event, based on the county they live in.
The interactive map allows users to choose a county anywhere in the United States, choose the event size (anywhere from 10 people to 10,000), and then calculate the risk that at least one COVID-19 positive person will be present.
For example selecting an event with 25 people will show that in Jefferson County there will an 86% chance that at least one person at the event will be COVID-positive as of July 15, 2020. At a gathering with only 10 people, that risk goes down to 55%.
Go to an event in Jefferson or Chambers County with 50 people in attendance and there's a 98% chance some there is COVID-positive at this date according to the map.
Attending an event with 100 people will put the risk at more than 99% in Jefferson Chambers County. Hardin, Liberty, and Orange County aren't far behind at 96%, 94% and 97% respectively.
Selecting events of 500 will show a more than 99% chance of encountering a COVID-positive person in almost the entire state of Texas.
Newton County is among 17 Texas counties that currently show very low risk at this time but that could change.
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The interactive map is based on data from The COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic, which pulls daily data on COVID-19 testing and patients from all 50 states. It's also based on 2019 U.S. Census data.
The risk assessment tool was developed by researchers at Georgia Tech's Institute of Technology, Biological Sciences (GT-BIOS) and the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory (ABiL).
