COVID-19 Risks: What Does the Latest Study Tell Us?
Is eating out off the table? Are all gyms and hotels a no-go?
A new study of COVID-19 dynamics generated a flurry of scary headlines regarding the risks associated with restaurants, gyms, and hotels.
“Covid Superspreader Risk Is Linked to Restaurants, Gyms, Hotels” Bloomberg News
Should you never eat out, go to the gym, or stay in hotel, until we are all vaccinated?
It pays to dig a little more deeply and see how this study applies to your context.
What was the study?
The study, published in Nature in November 2020, was called: Mobility network models of COVID-19 explain inequities and inform reopening. It describes a model of how COVID-19 spreads that incorporates data on where people spent time. The researchers applied this model to inform risk-mitigation strategies as part of reopening efforts, and to explore the potential reasons for social inequities in the impact of COVID-19.
Thus, the most important thing to note is that this was a modeling study, not a contact tracing study. They didn’t really know where COVID-19 spread happened, but guessed based on a variety of assumptions, and examined how well their predictions matched reality.
