Coronavirus Spread In Montgomery Co: See Your Risk Of Exposure

SILVER SPRING, MD — Maryland's coronavirus metrics are at their highest point in months, leading health officials to discourage holiday travel and large family gatherings.

In Montgomery County, indoor dining is capped at 25 percent, public gatherings are limited to 25 people, and certain businesses — such museums and bowling alleys — must reduce their capacity to 25 percent or 25 people, whichever is lower.

The county's health department says that the safest options for the holiday is celebrating with people virtually or with those who live in your household.

Despite this guidance, some people still plan to travel. That carries some risk of catching the coronavirus, according to public health officials.

What is your risk of exposure?

Researchers 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.

As of Wednesday, the tool estimated that there is a 15 percent chance that somebody in a crowd of 15 in Montgomery County would have the virus. Those odds drop to 10 percent in a group of 10, the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool predicted.

You can reduce this risk by wearing a mask, staying 6 feet apart, gathering outdoors, and decreasing group size, the researchers added.

Two Georgia Institute of Technology professors created the model. 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."

Residents can explore the data at this link.

Patch staffers William Bornhoft and Amber Fisher contributed reporting to this article.