See Your Coronavirus Exposure Risk Indoors In Redmond

REDMOND, WA — As the holiday season kicks off and officials warn residents about limiting their interactions with others outside 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 Wednesday, if you were to attend an event with at least 15 people in King County, there’s a 19 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.

Washington's recent batch of restrictions urges residents to only gather outdoors, and in groups of five or fewer people.

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.

A 12 percent chance of to be exposed to the coronavirus at your small Thanksgiving celebration may not seem like a huge risk at first, but if one in ten Thanksgiving parties becomes an outbreak, the damage would be incalculable. The recent surge in new COVID-19 infections across the state has health officials worried that hospitals will soon run out of beds, and the pandemic will overrun the state's medical system.

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Read more: Washington Reports Record Hospitalizations Amid Coronavirus Surge

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Last week a report from the Institute of Disease Modeling predicted that Washington could see as many as 150 hospitalizations each day, if the trajectory continues.

That's why Washington state leadership is asking everyone to stay home for the holidays this year. Earlier this month Gov. Jay Inslee and his wife Trudi addressed the state asking them not to travel for the Thanksgiving holiday.

"Here's some good news: We're only going to have to do this once. This is a unique Thanksgiving and holiday season," Inslee said. "We're thankful that more therapeutics are on the way, as is the imminent arrival of a vaccine. There is a lot more at our disposal to fight this virus than there was when the pandemic began. We are optimistic that Thanksgiving 2021 will be the best ever."

Related: As Thanksgiving Approaches, WA Issues One Last Plea To Stay Home

Patch staffer Amber Fisher contributed to this report.