Coronavirus In Jefferson County: What Is Your Risk Of Exposure?

JEFFERSON COUNTY, AL — Ahead of the holidays, 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.

With Thanksgiving and Christmas traditionally a time for large family gatherings, public health officials are urging people to avoid gatherings of any size.

The tool shows the estimated chance — between 0 and 100 percent — of encountering at least one person with the coronavirus at an event in a given county. Risk is reduced by wearing a mask, distancing and gathering outdoors in smaller groups, researchers said.

A gathering in Jefferson County with 15 people, for instance, currently poses a 24 percent chance of being exposed to the virus.

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.

"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."