Watsonville's COVID-19 Indoor Exposure Risk; Latest Case Count

WATSONVILLE, CA — As the holiday season kicks off and officials warn residents about limiting their interactions with others outside of their own household to curb the spread of the coronavirus, a tool developed by researchers from several universities lets you see your risk of exposure to the virus at an indoor gathering.

The tool shows the estimated chance — between 0 and 100 percent — that you'll encounter at least one person with the coronavirus at an event in your county. You can reduce the risk by wearing a mask, distancing and gathering outdoors in smaller groups, researchers said.

As of Tuesday, if you were to attend an event with at least 15 people in Santa Cruz County, there’s an 18 percent chance that someone in the group could expose you to the virus, according to the COVID-19 Risk Assessment Planning Tool. If your gathering has 10 people, that risk would be 12 percent.

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."

Access the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool here.

Santa Cruz County is in the most-restrictive purple tier of the state's four-tiered, color-coded COVID-19 risk system. That means indoor gatherings are not allowed here, but the state permits outdoor gatherings with a maximum of three households, and safety precautions such as wearing masks and maintaining six feet of distance between others who are not in your household.

Public health officials in Santa Cruz County and across the Bay Area recommend people keep gatherings "small, short, stable and safe," and ideally close enough to home to avoid long-distance travel.

The safest way to celebrate is with virtual gatherings or at home, officials said.

There were 4,610 COVID-19 cases reported in Santa Cruz County as of Tuesday— up from 4,426 cases a week ago, county data show. There are 1,108 active known COVID-19 cases and 29 deaths have been linked to the virus.

Santa Cruz County has seen an average of 22.5 new COVID-19 cases per day, per 100,000 people over the past week. There is a seven-day lag in this data, according to the state.

The test positivity rate has been 4.6 percent, on average, over the past week.

Here's the breakdown by community:

• Aptos: 184
• Ben Lomond: 35
• Boulder Creek: 39
• Capitola: 126
• Felton: 40
• Freedom: 266
• Santa Cruz: 1,021
• Scotts Valley: 120
• Soquel: 105
• Watsonville: 2,533
• Unincorporated: 43
• Under investigation: 98

See the full breakdown of Santa Cruz County COVID-19 data.

Amber Fisher contributed to this report.