By Ian Pumphrey
As America continues to break COVID records, and cases in Texas rise rapidly, I ask myself what we can do to minimize the spread of the virus. Quickly however, I am reminded that reducing the spread of COVID isn’t so much about what we should be doing but more about what we shouldn’t be doing.
Yet around the campus, city, and state I see mask-less parties being thrown as if there is no virus at all. Alleviating the surge in COVID cases is a group effort, and if we are going to act towards a COVID-free future, some need to stop acting with ignorance and mindlessness.
According to the CDC, a “superspreader” event is a gathering in which one infectious person infects many others. They note that large gatherings of people have higher chances of being superspreader events, as it only takes one person to infect many. With this in mind, parties, especially those that are tightly packed, indoors and without masks, are possibly the easiest way to “super-spread” this virus. To decrease the massive surge of COVID cases at the state and national level, the masses must act in a responsible manner, and these superspreader events need to come to an end if this surge is going to go down.
Although, many who participate in these superspreader events are well aware, considering how televised the virus is, of the risks they put on themselves and others, and choose to either ignore or try to delegitimize the danger of COVID. Those who choose the former often cite COVID-19’s “1% mortality rate”, but this is just a neglection of the law of large numbers and the fact that mortality rates are different for different age groups. The law of large numbers states that an average of results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value and will tend to become closer to the expected value as more trials are performed. In relation to COVID, the law of large numbers means that, with our population being as large as it is, the rate of death will be on average very low since the population is a large number and the “expected value” is a healthy person (since most of the time COVID will not result in death). Furthermore, different age groups are at different levels of risks, with mortality rates being much higher for the older population. The fact that a younger person will most likely survive the virus doesn’t mean that they can’t spread it onto people belonging to these more at-risk age groups. Additionally, people must not ignore the virus altogether. It’s safe to say everyone wants things to go back to normal and many want to go back out to parties, but that doesn’t mean we should.
There is no going back to normal, and fighting the surge in COVID cases means practicing social distancing, engaging in minimal social gathering, wearing masks and ultimately staying cautious with our decisions. If we all can responsibly and consistently do this in the coming months, we will see a future where we can begin to see our friends and family the “old-fashioned” way. These actions are not to promote a restrictive present, but rather a non-restrictive future.