Question: “infections per 100,000” - with what disease? in what time or spacial frame? Personally and professionally I’m not just concerned with SARS-CoV-2. What disease? What sort of exposures are likely for you? Influenza is not yet on the rise, but likely will be. When it starts up get your vax, you’ll likely get about 3 months of protection. If you have immune issues, consider a second flu shot in 3-4 months. Masking, handwashing. Rotavirus sucks, but handwashing takes care of most of the risk. Measles? Get your vax!
Time and intensity are important. Are you going to be outdoors, with a small distantly space group and/or over a shorter time frame? Is this event/ time with a larger group, lots of heavy breathing (gym, singing, use your imagination), indoors, for a longer period of time?
Many infectious diseases have post acute syndromes. Consider which of those is worth the risk to your life and those around you.
Beyond the acute phase: a comprehensive literature review of long-term sequelae resulting from infectious diseases
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10864624/#s3
Then mask up.
At the moment PMC19 modeling shows that we are in the beginning of the 13th peak in Covid19. Ask yourself, do you wish to participate in this peak, or no?
If no then mask up.
Go a little more granular, local, small, find the waste water surveillance for your county, if it’s available.
Look at the county level for PMC19, which alas is from the previous weeks data. PCR takes time to run. Same for waste water surveillance.
Consider if your town is a big tourist destination/ had a big influx recently for some big event. My town has huge events nearly every weekend of the Summer, which attracts people from other areas. I generally avoid such events, since 2020. And if I decide to go, I wear a mask.
Consider where you are going:
Regardless of those numbers, anyplace where large numbers gather (big group choral event), or large numbers pass through (grocery store), wear a mask.
Consider how much your death from cardiovascular disease, which is increased for 3 months post covid19, yes even a mild case, will mean to those around you. Also consider how much the death of someone you care about will mean when you get a mild/ asymptomatic and pass it along to them, e.g. your unvaccinated!?! elder parent.
Consider social implication in a small group - does everyone vs anyone vs no one in that group do anything useful in preventing the spread of infectious disease, e.g. testing, masking, handwashing, vaccination, participate or not if obviously sick (oh it’s just a sniffle, oh, it’s just allergies, oh X obvious symptom goes without any change in behavior whatsoever).
Apparently I can keep going on this, and have probably already “flooded the zone”. These are some consideration.
tl;dr - wash hands, wear a mask, get vaxxed, avoid exposure to ignorant people who don’t give a care for themselves or for you.
I wear a mask anytime I’m inside with anyone outside my bubble since 2020. Which means I haven’t eaten at a restaurant without good outdoor seating in 6 years, which is annoying for my friends.
The covid vaccine is no longer available in my country.
I always said I’d remove the mask when the number of covid infections dropped below 1 case per 1 million people. Now that countries don’t track infections, I don’t know how to translate that boundary into waste water testing or whatever data we have today.
Same with me, and restaurants. I hang with friends outside, turns out that was mostly a good choice.
Ok, so back to my questions: 1 case of what, per million people over what time frame? There were over a million or more C19 new daily infections during the 4th thru 12th waves of this disease. We are over 500K new daily infections per day and 3.69 million cases per week, and rising on the current, 13th peak. Per the graph on pmc19.com.
According to (https://www.statista.com/statistics/861113/estimated-number-of-flu-cases-us/) each flu season in the US from 2011 t0 2025 had from 9.4 to 51 million cases. Take a look at that graph, especially 21/22 to 24/25. When the numbers start to rise, or as soon as now get your flu vax, and… wash your hands, wear a mask.
My point being there are common diseases, Covid19, Influenza A, Influenza B and others, which will outright kill a person, or give them post acute effects that will kill, or disable.
I’m not worried about getting some short-term, non-chronic infection of influenza or covid. I’m worried about getting long covid. Or giving any of that to someone else who is more immune comprised than myself.
My boundary is 1 person testing positive for covid in one day per 1 million in my region (roughly 100 km or so from my work/home). If we had a few weeks pass were less than 1 person per 1 million people were positive for covid 19 per day, I’d feel the risk was low enough to eat inside a restaurant.
i track that website, as well as wastewater surveilance to give me some idea of how careful I need to be, week by week.
What metrics do you use? Like, what’s the line at which you wear a mask?
I used to go by number of infections per 100,000 but I can’t find that anymore and I feel lost.
Question: “infections per 100,000” - with what disease? in what time or spacial frame? Personally and professionally I’m not just concerned with SARS-CoV-2. What disease? What sort of exposures are likely for you? Influenza is not yet on the rise, but likely will be. When it starts up get your vax, you’ll likely get about 3 months of protection. If you have immune issues, consider a second flu shot in 3-4 months. Masking, handwashing. Rotavirus sucks, but handwashing takes care of most of the risk. Measles? Get your vax!
Time and intensity are important. Are you going to be outdoors, with a small distantly space group and/or over a shorter time frame? Is this event/ time with a larger group, lots of heavy breathing (gym, singing, use your imagination), indoors, for a longer period of time?
Many infectious diseases have post acute syndromes. Consider which of those is worth the risk to your life and those around you. Beyond the acute phase: a comprehensive literature review of long-term sequelae resulting from infectious diseases https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10864624/#s3 Then mask up.
At the moment PMC19 modeling shows that we are in the beginning of the 13th peak in Covid19. Ask yourself, do you wish to participate in this peak, or no?
If no then mask up.
Go a little more granular, local, small, find the waste water surveillance for your county, if it’s available. Look at the county level for PMC19, which alas is from the previous weeks data. PCR takes time to run. Same for waste water surveillance.
Consider if your town is a big tourist destination/ had a big influx recently for some big event. My town has huge events nearly every weekend of the Summer, which attracts people from other areas. I generally avoid such events, since 2020. And if I decide to go, I wear a mask.
Consider where you are going: Regardless of those numbers, anyplace where large numbers gather (big group choral event), or large numbers pass through (grocery store), wear a mask.
Consider how much your death from cardiovascular disease, which is increased for 3 months post covid19, yes even a mild case, will mean to those around you. Also consider how much the death of someone you care about will mean when you get a mild/ asymptomatic and pass it along to them, e.g. your unvaccinated!?! elder parent.
Consider social implication in a small group - does everyone vs anyone vs no one in that group do anything useful in preventing the spread of infectious disease, e.g. testing, masking, handwashing, vaccination, participate or not if obviously sick (oh it’s just a sniffle, oh, it’s just allergies, oh X obvious symptom goes without any change in behavior whatsoever).
Apparently I can keep going on this, and have probably already “flooded the zone”. These are some consideration.
tl;dr - wash hands, wear a mask, get vaxxed, avoid exposure to ignorant people who don’t give a care for themselves or for you.
I wear a mask anytime I’m inside with anyone outside my bubble since 2020. Which means I haven’t eaten at a restaurant without good outdoor seating in 6 years, which is annoying for my friends.
The covid vaccine is no longer available in my country.
I always said I’d remove the mask when the number of covid infections dropped below 1 case per 1 million people. Now that countries don’t track infections, I don’t know how to translate that boundary into waste water testing or whatever data we have today.
Same with me, and restaurants. I hang with friends outside, turns out that was mostly a good choice.
Ok, so back to my questions: 1 case of what, per million people over what time frame? There were over a million or more C19 new daily infections during the 4th thru 12th waves of this disease. We are over 500K new daily infections per day and 3.69 million cases per week, and rising on the current, 13th peak. Per the graph on pmc19.com.
According to (https://www.statista.com/statistics/861113/estimated-number-of-flu-cases-us/) each flu season in the US from 2011 t0 2025 had from 9.4 to 51 million cases. Take a look at that graph, especially 21/22 to 24/25. When the numbers start to rise, or as soon as now get your flu vax, and… wash your hands, wear a mask.
My point being there are common diseases, Covid19, Influenza A, Influenza B and others, which will outright kill a person, or give them post acute effects that will kill, or disable.
I’m not worried about getting some short-term, non-chronic infection of influenza or covid. I’m worried about getting long covid. Or giving any of that to someone else who is more immune comprised than myself.
My boundary is 1 person testing positive for covid in one day per 1 million in my region (roughly 100 km or so from my work/home). If we had a few weeks pass were less than 1 person per 1 million people were positive for covid 19 per day, I’d feel the risk was low enough to eat inside a restaurant.