Going to a New Year’s Eve party in Kentucky? This tool helps calculate the COVID risk

The coronavirus pandemic continues to surge in Kentucky and throughout the United States as families and friends gather during the holidays.

If you’re thinking about one last 2020 gathering on New Year’s Eve, a tool by Georgia Institute of Technology can help determine how safe it may be.

Their map helps assess the risk of at least one person at your New Year’s Eve event having COVID-19.

The website updates daily to provide data-driven information, helping individuals make decisions that could help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Users can select an “event size” anywhere from 10 to 5,000 people and watch as the map changes color based on risk level. Light yellow areas have risk levels below 1%, while dark red regions have risk levels above 99%.

Hovering over individual counties will reveal your chances of contracting COVID-19, according to the study.

The map combines documented coronavirus cases at the county level and data from antibody test results, which reveal more infections than reported by state health departments.

Risk in Kentucky

A gathering of 50 people in Fayette County poses a 65% chance of at least one person having COVID-19, the Georgia Tech data show. An event size of 10 people will pose a 19% chance.

Some of Fayette’s neighboring counties pose a greater risk. In Madison County, there is a 77% chance someone in a gathering of 50 people has the coronavirus. Bourbon County presents an 89% risk.

Jefferson County, the most populous county in the state, poses a similar risk as Fayette at 68% for a gathering of 50.

Only a handful of counties in the state present less than a 50% chance of one person in a gathering of 50 people having COVID-19. Three — Ballard, Crittenden and Caldwell — are in western Kentucky. Gallatin and Magoffin are the others, but all five still pose at least a 39% chance.

Some of the highest-risk counties in Kentucky are in the southeastern portion of the state. Clinton, Wayne, McCreary and Whitley counties, which all border Tennessee, present at least a 92% risk level for gatherings of 50 people.

Kentucky as a whole has significantly better risk levels than some of its bordering states — Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee. The majority of the counties in those three states all have an 80% likelihood of an attendee in a gathering of 50 having the coronavirus.

You can check out the COVID-19 assessment tool here.