Coronavirus Spread In Lorain Co.: What Is Your Risk Of Exposure?

AVON, OH — 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 the holidays fast approaching and COVID-19 rates climbing, public health officials are urging people to avoid gatherings of any size.

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 Wednesday, if you were to attend an event with 15 people in Lorain County, there would be a 26 percent chance that someone at the event would have the virus, according to the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool. If you hang out with ten people, the chance drops to 18 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.

Medical officials with the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, MetroHealth and other hospital systems have asked Ohioans to consider celebrating Thanksgiving with only the people in their own home. Hospitals are increasingly under strain in Ohio as caregivers contract COVID-19 and patient beds are occupied by COVID-19 patients.

Ohio will be under a curfew starting Thursday, with Ohioans bound to their homes between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. The curfew will remain in place for at least three weeks, according to Gov. Mike DeWine. The curfew is a strategy to try and curb the state's surging COVID-19 numbers.

State officials have also issued new mandates limiting activities at weddings, funerals and banquet halls; and requiring masks to be worn at all times in public places.