Article comes from Bradford Benn’s LinkedIn page. You can check out the original post here.
For those in the AV industry, one of the bigger shows in the United States is coming up in about thirty days. For the Themed Entertainment industry, it is a little later in November. Both are in Florida at the Orange County Convention Center. The current rate of COVID-19 cases, especially the Delta variant is high in Florida. In fact, it is consistently in the top two vacillating with Texas with lowest number of intensive care beds available or the highest levels of infection based on various metrics. I am not going to debate which study to believe and how the math is being done. There are people who do that and do it better than I do. What I am going to say is that one (1) in five hundred (500) American citizens have died from COVID since the start of the pandemic. That easily is a scary number.
There is also a woman (hill_deeee) who has gone through the math of contracting and dying from COVID on TikTok that has gone viral (definitely R-rated language). In a nutshell, if one is not vaccinated there is a one (1) in eight (8) chance of getting infected with COVID in the United States. If you are vaccinated there is a lower than a one in thirteen thousand chance of getting infected with COVID. Here is her math in a safe for work form:
- There are approximately 330 million people in the United States. There have been approximately 41 million COVID cases reported in the US. Based on those numbers you have a one in eight chance of contracting the virus.
- There are 173 million people who are fully vaccinated in the United States at the end of August 2021. There were approximately 12,908 breakthrough cases in August. The reduced value is approximately a one in 13,402 chance of catching COVID if fully vaccinated.
- There are various ways to calculate COVID deaths, such as does someone dying in a car accident count as a COVID death if they are infected? There have been 2437 deaths of fully vaccinated people with COIVD. However about 480 were not directly caused by COVID. That results in about 2000 people that have died from break through COVID out of a pool of 173 million fully vaccinated people. If we reduced that it becomes about one in 86,500 chances of dying from COVID after vaccination.
- Assuming InfoComm has 26,802 attendees in theory two people would become infected if they are vaccinated. If they are not vaccinated it is a one in eight chance of becoming infected.
While trying to quantify the risk, I found the microCOVID Project from an article in the Smithsonian Magazineby Corryn Wetzel, “This Calculator Estimates Your Risk of Getting Covid-19” posted electronically on September 14, 2021. This simulator came about from friends trying to determine what the “risk” cost of various activities are. I am not going to explain everything about it, their video does a better job of explaining it than I could. The idea is to provide a risk number that one can use to evaluate risks of various activities. These values include taking precautions such as wearing masks and distancing from others.
To put all of this in perspective, based on 36,096 fatalities from car accidents in the United States during 2019, the odds of dying in a car crash is higher; 1 in 942 if calculated the same way.
These numbers do not count illness nor the availability of medical services. You need to make your own decision. Let me repeat that. I am providing information I have found and the research I am using to weigh my decisions. You should do your own research and determine your own comfort level.
These calculations do not include activities that might take place outside of the Orange County Convention Center. What are the risks from riding in a taxi? What are the risks going out to dinner with a large group? What are the risks traveling via airplane?
All these things should be considered. And the one that is even more difficult, what is the impact on your family?
Bradford Benn is the founder of Advisist. Check out their story and what they offer on their website.
