The Turkey Who Voted for Thanksgiving

Donald Trump might not have won the election but he has turned the country red. If you look at just about any map of Covid-19 in the United States you will see it covered in red, showing a country being over-run by a deadly virus. That is some legacy for the outgoing president.

For example the Covid Exit Strategy is an interactive map which visualizes how well each state is doing in reducing the number of Coronavirus symptoms and cases. As you can see from the map above only the state of Hawaii is not currently witnessing the 'uncontrolled spread' of Covid-19. 

The map uses a simple color scale to show how each state is currently progressing towards reducing the spread of  the virus. The Covid Exit Strategy website also shows how each state is doing in terms of a number of key measures. These include the rates of testing & tracing, the 14 day trend in the number of positive cases and the occupation rate of ICU beds in each state.

Another way that you can assess thel risk from Covid-19 is to consult the Harvard Global Health Institute's COVID Risk Level map which shows the severity of the Covid-19 outbreak at county level across the United States. The map reveals which counties have a green, yellow, orange or red risk level, based on the local number of new daily cases.

On the map counties that have fewer than one daily new case of Covid-19 per 100,000 people are colored green. Counties with one to nine daily new cases are colored yellow. Counties with between 10 and 24 new cases are colored orange and counties with 25 new cases per day are shown in red. The map also allows you to view the Covid-19 risk levels at state level. This view shows that only five states are currently below the red level.

Alongside the map the Harvard Global Health Institute has released recommendations and guidance about how counties should respond to the Covid-19 outbreak risk levels. If a county is shown as red on the map then stay-at-home orders are absolutely necessary. Counties shown as orange are advised to have stay-at-home orders and test and trace programs. If a county currently has a yellow risk level then a rigorous test and trace program is advised. Counties which are shown as green should continue to monitor with testing and contact tracing.

If you are planning on attending or organizing an event in the USA then you might want to refer to the COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool. This interactive mapping tool can tell you the risk that someone with Covid-19 will be at an event, given the event's size and location.

Obviously the more people who attend an event then the larger the odds that there will be someone who has Covid-19. The Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool allows you to select the number of people expected to attend an event (from 10 to 5,000). Once you select the estimated number of people attending the event counties on the map will be colored to show the risk level across the whole of the United States.

The Covid-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool doesn't only work for U.S. counties. You can also use the tool to discover the risk levels of someone attending an event being positive of Covid-19 in a number of different European countries.

In the UK we often use the simile "like a turkey voting for Christmas" to refer to someone who seems intent on contributing to their own downfall. The closest American translation for this idiom would probably be 'like a turkey voting for Thanksgiving". 

This week don't be the Turkey who voted for Thanksgiving.