Coronavirus Spread In WilCo: What Is Your Risk Of Exposure?

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TX — Researchers from several universities have created an event risk planning tool for every county in the nation, with a map showing the risk of coronavirus transmission based on an event's size and location.

Public health officials are urging people to avoid gatherings of any size ahead of the holiday season as COVID-19 rates surge. To that end, the tool shows the estimated chance — between 0 and 100 percent — that one would encounter at least one person with the coronavirus at an event in any given county. Residents can reduce their risk by wearing a mask, distancing and gathering outdoors in smaller groups, researchers reminded.

For instance, if one were to attend an event with up to 50 people in Williamson County as of Tuesday, there would be a 50 percent chance that someone at the event would have the virus, according to the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool. If one were to hang out in a smaller gathering of 25 people, the chance drops to 29 percent. Smaller crowds of 15 people drop the chance of exposure to 19 percent.

Access the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool here

A pair of Georgia Institute of Technology professors spearheaded the tool's creation in tandem with Stanford University researchers and the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory. "By default we assume there are five times more cases than are being reported," the research team wrote in a prepared statement. "In places with less testing availability, that bias may be higher."

State officials worked with Google and Apple to set up the system, which uses Bluetooth technology to share anonymous tokens with other phones. If someone tests positive for the coronavirus and chooses to upload their results, people who are at risk of infection will receive an alert of potential exposure.

Tokens are not associated with any phone number, name, location or IP address, and they change every 15 minutes to add an extra layer of anonymity, officials said.