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All eyes will be on Tulsa, Oklahoma this weekend as President Trump is set to hold a rally with an expected 19,000 people in attendance. Public health officials including the director of Tulsa’s Health Department have discouraged this rally. (1/12) https://cnn.it/3hN6pvt
Here’s why - first, let’s look at the rise of Covid-19 cases in Oklahoma. The state has seen new confirmed cases more than double from the previous week. That means the virus is rapidly circulating there, and there is evidence of significant community spread. (2/12)
Top that off with the added risk of a large, indoor event without proper social distancing. The CDC puts this in the “highest risk” category for gatherings. (3/12)
Then consider what people will be doing at the rally - yelling and chanting which we know can expel respiratory droplets farther and faster than when speaking at normal volumes. (4/12) https://cnn.it/3hM3RO7
Wearing a mask could help with this - there’s a 17.4% chance of transmission without a mask and 3.1% chance WITH a mask - but, so far masks are optional for the rally and no safety guidelines have been released by the Trump campaign. (5/12)
We talk about risk a lot, but I realize it means different things to different people. After all, what does “high risk” really mean? (6/12)
So, I turned to CNN contributor @ErinBromage , an associate professor of biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, to figure out together how the virus is likely to spread. (7/12)
Given the infection rates in the community, 100 people in the audience will likely arrive already infected. We know that roughly 20% of people are typically responsible for releasing 80-99% of the virus into the environment. This is known as the Pareto principle. (8/12)
By this principle Bromage says, “So, of that 100, you’re looking at 20 people that are seriously releasing lots of virus there.” He adds that being indoors increases the risk about 20x and not wearing a mask while shouting increases it 10-50x. (9/12)
https://bit.ly/3emxT9e
https://bit.ly/3emxT9e
So while a single individual on average spreads the virus to two to three other people, this scenario - people packed into an indoor space with a lot of shouting and little mask wearing - could mean each of those 20 attendees could potentially infect 40-50 people. (10/12)
And that could mean 800-1,000 newly infected people who will go home, possibly out of state and spread it even more. This is the anatomy of an outbreak. (11/12)
The point isn’t to scare anyone - again, this is just what could be possible. It’s to show that there are ways to reduce the risk of transmission. Wear a mask, keep your distance and if you do something high risk, you may need to quarantine yourself. #BeKind (12/12)
