You can evaluate COVID-19 risk at gatherings across country with this tool

PITTSBURGH — If you plan to leave home for the holidays, there’s a tool to help you evaluate the COVID-19 risk where you’re going.

However, it’s important to emphasize that health officials keep stressing for everyone to keep gatherings, including for Thanksgiving, small -- limiting them just to people in your household.

>>STORY: Stay-at-home, stop social gatherings advisory issued for Allegheny County as COVID-19 cases continue to rise

The COVID-19 Event Risk Assessment Planning Tool can tell you how likely it is that someone at a gathering has the virus. To find that out, you enter the group size and click on a county on a map (CLICK HERE or give it a try below).

The risk assessment equation includes COVID-19 case rates and population data.

A team at Georgia Tech developed the tool.

Developers said they wanted to give people a way to make informed decisions.

>>STORY: Still plan to travel? Getting tested for COVID-19 beforehand is not foolproof

“We can say, in this event, will COVID be there or not? And in many places in the country right now, there is a greater than 50% chance. There is a likelihood, high likelihood, greater than chance, that COVID will be at the event,” Dr. Chlio Andris, assistant professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said.

Stay-at-home advisory issued for Allegheny County as COVID-19 cases continue to rise

Cox Media Group